Some questions about fragging

[happy_pitbull]

my frag tank... baby corals:yes:
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y240/Carrida/may26004.jpg

WOW! That frag tank looks amazing ! Could you tell me a bit about it? I have recently started to frag some of my softies, and have basically just putting the cut pieces into a shallow dish with crushed coral and netting over top, to prevent them from floating away until they attach to some pieces of crushed coral. I do this right in my main tank.

Could you tell me what those things are in the egg crate that the frags are attached to, and how you get the frags attached to them? Do you have to wait for them to anchor onto something themselves, or can you put crazy glue right on a frag to attach it to something? I thought it may get too slimey? Any filtartion on this tank? And what do you have for lighting?

Sorry for all the questions, but i love my corals, and want to be able to frag as many as I can ;)


Thanks !

Min

[Shelley]

Thank You. The frag tank is actually my sump refugium. Its a third of a 33 gallon sump, so its about 10 gallons and it is plumbed into a 50+ gallon reef tank with a Deltec 600 skimmer and about 125lbs of Marshall islands live rock.

You can buy frag plugs almost anywhere, I got these at J and L aquatics. The tank is lit by a Sunpod MH fixture which has a 70W 14000K Ushio bulb. I use bluer bulbs ( 20K Geismmans) in my display tanks,, but the 14 gives better growth and is still a nice looking color.

Fragging.. oh my.. fragging is something you get good at after a few times. One thing to remember is to never superglue flesh.. Superglue creates heat and heat kills. Get the newly glued frag back into the water immediatly. It will cure under water.
If possible hold the fleshy corals like colts and mushrooms on with rubberbands until they attach.
Zoanthids and Palys try to frag them off the main colony with the rock attached. That way its simple to glue the rock to the frag plug. For sps I make a base out of 2 part epoxy ( also from J and L) and just stick the frag in. It cures underwater.

MOST IMPORTANT... corals protect themselves. They sting and squirt toxins. Zoa's and palys have one of the most deadly neuro-toxins around. They will squirt and seem to aim for eyes.. As my momma used to tell me...
USE PROTECTION!! GOGGLES AND GLOVES!!!!!

[happy_pitbull]

WOW ! Lots of info there....me being relatively new the the world of SW (around a year now) means I still have tonnes of questions and lots to learn ! Thank you so much for all that info !

OK, frag plugs... how does one use these? Do the frags attach to these directly... do you use a glue or epoxy to hold them onto these plugs? And once attached to these plugs, are the plugs used as their new base in the main tank....so they are just left to grow on these plugs in the main tank ?

How do you know when they are ready to be moved out of the frag tank and into a main tank?

Sorry for all the questions... LOL!

Your lighting sounds powerful... I only use one15watt 18" 50/50 flourescent bulb... an 18g nano tank...no skimmer. (A baby tank..LOL!) I only have softies right now... and maybe a colt coral? Not sure on that one.... and if it is a colt coral is it a softie as well... I dont know.

And I dont even know what a Palys or a Zoa is..? Sorry .. :twitcy:

And I did not know that about neurotoxins either yikes ! The only things I have fragged so far are a ricordea and a blue shroom (I think, some kind of shroom anyways, LOL!). The ricordea I found got really slimy when I was working with it, and the blueish srhoom, well.. it SQUIRTED AT ME !!! In self defense I knew, poor thing, I felt bad cutting it while it squirted at me, telling me not to hurt it.... :( Hope it was not toxic stuff, at the time I only thought it was water.... ?


Again, thanks for all your help... other forums i have asked for detailed answers on just say go to Garf and read... which I have done, but found no info as helpfull as you are... Thank you so much !


Min

[Shelley]

I was going to ask a mod to move this to the saltwater section.. before I got into more details but LOL I am a mod!:yes: I will see if I can figure that out.. then go more in detail about attaching to plugs ect.


Ohh melody... :)

[happy_pitbull]

OK, I shall wait patiently :spinny:

Thanks !


Min

[mixixe]

any advice on fragging anthelia? I havent tried attaching it anything yet as it's so soft... and I really suck at chipping things off rock. So far all i've done is rip off the excess while it's growing and throwing it in the frag tank and it ends up whether it gets blow to...but i'd like to frag onto a puck... any ideas?

[mixixe]

btw, most frags i make i use superglue to attach to pucks or plugs. Some things are harder to attach with super glue.. like anything slimy. Those are better netted I hear but I havent done any fragging yet with those and mushroooms i just dump a bunch of rubble at the bottom of the tank where the mushrooms are and they frag themselves. The sucky thing about mushrooms are that even if they are secured onto something sometimes they walk away...lkike i lost two mushrooms that walked away into my rock, but luckily, two mushrooms also got blown by the powerhead into the rocks...and walked their way out! yay! cool guys!