Today we are announcing that our coral made its way to eBay Auctions. As announced on Canreef.com and AquariumPros.ca, our Collector’s SPS frags are being auctioned right this second. We feel that you do not have to spend 300$ or more just to enjoy 5 to 6 corals. This is why we have created frag packs. Two of the frag packs that were created were made for auctions. Here are the details:

Collector’s Pack I: Meteor Shower Cyph, Oregon Tort, Subgrabra, Turaki, Tryee Undata

Collector’s Pack II: Pink Branching Cyph, Hoek, Anacropora, True Suharsonoi, Inermis

(Left to Right,First 5 Pack I, Second 5 Pack II)

You can bid on Pack I here, and Pack II here. Don’t be bid out, as there are only 1 of each available (for now).  The Auction ends in 6 days. Good luck reefnecks!

Any questions regrading this Auction, you can email us (info@fragd.it) or call us locally at 416-278-3744.

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What stuck in my mind, however, is that frags grow better and more quickly when they’re glued on their side.  Mike said they grow more quickly that way since it’s natural.

When a storm knocks a few pieces of coral off a colony what happens to it?  Does it land on its end and apply some cyanoacrylate to itself?  Probably not.  It usually lands on its side and encrusts.  A frag on its side will also have more surface area in contact with the rock its going to bond to (side VS end).  Therefore the growth will happen more quickly.

I say “Yes, but…”.  Super glue will kill off the side of the coral its touching.  If half the coral is covered in glue, then isn’t the advantage of flesh contact gone?

This concept has been bouncing around in my head for a while now, so it’s time for an experiment!  This bring back memories of grade nine.  Now all I need is a cute lab partner who won’t go on a date leading to a semester of awkward science classes.  Um, or something.

Scarlett documents the experiment…and still won’t go on a date with me.

Background

I did some reading on fragging SPS corals.  All I could find on the subject was some anecdotal stories saying that side fragged coral grew faster than coral placed up and down.  An example:

It’s been said that, when mounting frags, it’s helpful to lay the coral on the base so as to have the tissue touching rock. I believe the philosophy behind this is that the exposed area will be one of fastest growth, in order to repair itself. by placing this side up, you get new coral growth faster. It is also said that the tissue exposed to rock will tand to drop and encrust the rock quicker. However, in my experience with trying both ways, I have not noticed a considerable difference either way. However, my frag holding tank is not setup to allow uniform conditions for all frags, so that may have scewed my opinion somewhat.

Let’s hope our experiment turns out better than this.

Hypothesis

This feels like a coin toss, but I’m going to say that a properly side mounted frag will come out growing a bit faster than an end mounted one.  The extra contact with the growing surface will help it grow more quickly.  The upright mounted frag will grow upwards more quickly, but once the sideways mounted frag catches on, it will grow quicker.

Method

Take four newly cut pieces from two different colonies and place one of each colony up and down and one on the side.  That will give us two of each variable.  I’ll apply minimal glue as to not kill off the flesh.  They will be placed beside each other in a frag rack and we will measure the growth every two weeks.  The frags I cut are from a blue millipora and a green acropora gemmifera (?).  Forgive the crappy pictures.  The wife hid the DSLR somewhere in the house, so the iPhone was all I had.

Here’s pictures of the last night’s fragging festivities:

What do you think will happen?  Check back in about two weeks and we’ll update you.

Related posts:

1. The Frag’d It Experiment: week 2
2. Fraggin’ and Fraggin’ Tools, part 1
3. Too many frags

There’s an e-tail store who has been running sales for $10 (CDN)/frag for a while now.  They seem to pop up every month or so, stay for a month, then pop up again.  I wouldn’t say that they’re a ‘sale’ at all, but a regular part of their sales tactic.  That’s neither here nor there.  I bit the bullet and placed an order.  I ordered 12 frags, mostly SPS with a few LPS and zoanthids thrown in for good measure.

I picked up the order about two weeks ago and I wanted to share the results.

First, the positives:  there were no parasites that I’ve seen so far.  No red bugs, AEFW (acro eating flat worms), nudis or bad snails.  And, um, I wasn’t stabbed that day.

The not so positives: when a lack of parasites in your coral order is the only positive, there’s some real problems.

“I got’choo the best in dried coral! Just add water and watch them colour up!”

Here’s the problem with cheap frags; they’re cheap.  I’m not talking about the quality of the coral, but the rest of the product.  When you’re making $10 from a frag, how much effort are you going to put into the frag?  Quality frags are not cut’n'sell.  Not unless you want to be known as a chop-shop.  A quality frag should show new growth since it was fragged.  That takes *AT THE MINIMUM* two weeks.  Four is better.  Eight is even better.  See where I’m going here?  There’s no way you can sell a frag that’s been growing in a system for two months for the low, low price of $10.  It’s eaten up that much in calcium!

There’s effort fragging. Water testing, cleanup, general system maintenance, water changes. If you’re an online store, there’s website maintenance, hosting fees. The only way to turn a profit with $10 frags is to make them as cheap as possible. Take a large colony, hack off 40 pieces and sell them for $10 a pop.  That’s a lose-lose proposition for the coral and the consumer. When it comes to coral, life is cheap at $10.  Who cares if a $10 frag dies?  It’s cheap to replace.

The retailer is the only winner since he pockets $10.  Who cares about a reputation when you’re selling pieces of it off at $10 each?

So, here’s what I got with my order.  One frag RTN’ed before I got it home (that means my 12 frags are down to 11).  I got frags that had been cut the day before or later.  The flesh underneath the the super glue was still alive.  That’s how new they were.

Here’s some photographic evidence taken almost two weeks later, so you can see a bit of growth.  The frags were in such bad shape that I didn’t want to take them out of the water to get photos.  A couple of weeks in my aquarium has them in better shape, but I’m still not seeing the polyp extension that I do with other colonies.  And colour?  These corals are lucky to have any colour at all.

Still little to no encrusting. I think these poor frags needed to recover from their trip before they could even think about growth. At least the tissue under the super glue has died off.  Note the rough tips on the first frag.

To contrast, here’s some $25 frags I bought from a friend of mine.

Think $10 frags are still worth buying?  I think the value I received for my additional $15 is evident.  Quality is worth paying for.

One last point.  I’m not talking about stores that have the occasional sale.  There was a sale at my favourite LFS last weekend.  I bought these frags for $10 each, normally sell for $20 and up.

Is this a candidate for the Puple Finger of Excellence?

Picture on the site.

What I got.

Related posts:

1. Too many frags
2. Frags and aquaculturing
3. Frag’d It: the experiment

So what is in a name? A definition? A description? A trademark? A benchmark? A way to differentiate between two opposites? Or alikes?

You all know that I do a lot of web surfing,  sometimes too much.. friends add. But it allows me to get an understanding what is happening in many regions of the North American reefing industry. I can get a good feel on the pulse of the hobby in an area. So why is this entry labeled ‘Name Game Gone Berserk” and how does it relate to all of this?

Well, let me tell you. I am witnessing a vast majority of reefers AND e-tailers over-marketing every possible coral known to man to make a dollar. I am seeing SPS, LPS and soft corals getting the same treatment that a marketing firm would supply to big dogs such as Pepsi or McDonalds. I am seeing greed, and I am seeing detriment to our hobby. And I can’t stand it any longer!

Initially it was great. We would have very unique slower growing corals that were insanely colorful which couldn’t be found by many reefers. Usually, we tagged them with the farmer’s name and that would have been it. A lot of people would  use it to track lineage for originality as most likely they would command a hefty tag.  Steve Tyree, Greg Carroll, ORA are some that originally had their names on certain corals, corals that were worthy of unique names.  Now, for example, we have local e-tailers (online vendors) who cannot stop naming every coral in their possession with their acronyms. Is it necessary to label an aquacultured pink birdsnest a TNR Highlighter Pink Odyssey S. hysterix? Or a bluish grey chalice a TNR Enter The Matrix Echinophyllia? Trying to make a 20$ frag turn into a 120$ frag? Sad, really.

Not too long ago, I wrote on the whole name game and why it was ok to do so.  I think now I feel ashamed to even had thought so. Greed stewed this all up. People trying to profit from everyday corals that are seen in the hobby. Why not name something that is rarely seen? Something that takes three times as long to grow? Something that it is an immense challenge to keep?

But the problem lies with the vendors. They think all of their coral are unique and rare. Unsuspecting buyers would acquire this coral, and then see it at another location dubbed something completely different. Is that healthy for our hobby? Does anyone have any respect towards the consumers?  What about towards the hobby? Because partaking in this name game is completely and utterly disrespectful towards any member of our global community who takes a lot of pride and strives toward caring and culturing for hard to find and keep corals.

So lets keep the names on corals that need it, and discard your shameful acronyms. Unless of course you have the rarest collection known to man!

Related posts:

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We got talking about how many colonies he had. He guessed around 40. No way, I figured he had to be closer to 75 or 80. When I got home I counted the frags he gave me. There were 58 of them. Now, some of them were duplicates, but then again he didn’t give me a frag of every single colony.

Here’s a picture of frags accilimatizing in my sump.

Related posts:

1. The trouble with $10 frags
2. Frag’d It: the experiment
3. Frags and aquaculturing