A few months ago, maybe a year ago, we have done a few articles on the coral name game and its ridiculous marketing. In fact, I was on record to say that I am fully against it, as it serves  a single purpose: to yield more money to those selling them.

So this brings me to today’s post, having a coral in your name. A while ago, I have submitted one of my dear and prized corals to CoralPedia as they were taking submissions. I thought to myself, if I were to name any coral, it would be this only one. I could have easily gone the Tyree route, or the business route and called it a FI Blue Smacker. But its not about the money. Its a little bit about notoriety. Not humble you say? Here is a little history behind this coral.

First off, I know its origins. It came on a shipment from Marshall Island in 2005. For those who don’t know, Marshall Island shipments almost always come in browned out. Prior to roughly 2006, MI shipments were also quite big in coral size. Current shipments, a few that do come in, are frag-like in size. Secondly, 85%-90% of reefers don’t buy brown corals. This is believed to be due the risk involved of not knowing how its going to  ‘color up’. Sometimes people take a chance on a coral that is brown, and can have amazing success with it. Some cannot, and don’t buy. Thirdly, the coral in question was left for the dead. It was sitting in the loonie bin at the LFS. My curiosity was tickled, and so I took it home.

Being at home, it began to transform. It soon grew shades of deep blue. And then purple. And then a dash of pink. Without a question, it was the stud coral. The Bentley of my corals. The coral that every single person who ever saw my tank wanted, and many who were refused. A such coral would be disrespected if they were given to someone to live in a nano. Or a 2 month old 400 gallon. A coral that only seasoned reefers would attain.

So here I am, owning this showpiece. Only a handful of people have had its frags. I continue to have hope to this day that those frags are nice colonies by now. But unfortunately, I fear that most have perished. It is a very demanding coral. It requires a ton of light, and flow. It is very sensitive to water quality. A double edged sword. So why not categorize it with the people on CoralPedia? Who knows if anyone will ever see this coral again. Who knows if anyone has a fragment left? I have had this coral perish from me as well, only to find its double with a friend of mine. Now I own only two small fragments of this gem. So why not?!

So is naming it Vlad’s Marshall Island A. tenuis hypocritical? Say it ain’t so!

Well, that didn’t take too long. We must blab a lot then. Thank God some of it is actually meaningful, otherwise our ISP would have shut us down quickly!

So for this post, we won’t gloat. We won’t take cheap shots at anyone, well maybe at ourselves. We won’t Caption’d It, nor Coral Trend it. What we will do is take a long walk, we mean search through our winded posts, and reminisce on what were the good, the bad, and the PFE.

TOP 10 POSTS

1. The PFE Award – it rivals the Oscar for popularity!
2. Crooked LFS – it was so bad, it needed to be told in three parts.
3. Beating Bryopsis – do you know how to beat the worst algae?
4. Interview With Rommel Lumauig (Ultimate Frags) – uber frags, in text!
5. Pricing Frustrations – is this a blind auction or a place of business?
6. Magic Acrylic Cleaner – THE tool for your acrylic needs.
7. The Red Line – marketing strategies of LFSs.
8. Acan Land – want to buy some water for your acans?
9. Hubert Chan (Clownfish Man) – the man has gills for crying out loud!
10. 12 Days of Christmas – our funny take on the most famous coral.. uh we mean carol.

Lets not forget numerous past and present fragd.it features: the Bi-Weekly Species Profiles (retired), Coral Trends, Caption’d It, Friday Night Cinema. Coming in this new year are many new features, such as ‘Ask the Fragd.it Crew’, ‘Blacklisted Products’, and a few that we may not yet reveal.

We also have to thank our contributing bloggers Constatine and Gregg, who added spice to a already spicy dish. And we can’t leave our loyal readers and friends.

Much thanks, or props as Jeff puts it, goes to Jeff atMarineDepot, the boys at ReefBuilders, Danilo, Eric M at glassbox, Stony, Hubert, many many loyal AP readers (too many to name, unless you want me to name real names), Rev at R2R, boys at InternationalReefers, Eddie Hanson, numerous followers on Twitter, friends on FaceBook, MichiganReefers, Reef Central, CanReef, Aquarium Pros, and many amazing Reefing Forums. A final thanks goes out to not just reefers in North America, but around the globe. We know that you read, and we are flattered. You make this blog more enjoyable to produce and make us push the boundaries with new ideas.

We would also welcome our new readers, or as Vlad would like to call them mini fragditphiles. Our blog is free and it will fill you up. Kind of like a  healthy dose of reefing! So stay tuned for our next post and thank you for reading!

Jeff (co-pilot of Fragd.it), Hubert (ReefAquatica.ca), and his girlfriend (master bag-er and tie-er).. the three hard working amigos who sweated through the painful move.

It just happened that it was one of the most humid days of the summer, and we had to be moving! While the amigos were bagging all fish, coral, and liverock, I was dismantling the equipment. Taking things offline was a bit tricky, but went without a hitch. The livestock was sitting in 14 boxes waiting to be brought to the new pad. The tank was fairly heavy, even for an acrylic aquarium. The biggest problem was getting it down the stairs and into the truck. It was a lot of work for the four of us, but we all managed.

The offloading was fairly easy and went again without a hitch. The 300 gallon vat was already setup and waiting for livestock. Within a day, I had it all hooked up and fully automated. I did have one casualty, my nice A. blochii. Must have been from suffocation, as it was perfectly fine before we bagged it.

Ok, ok.. here are the pictures:

To keep this post under 1000 words, I removed myself from commenting on each individual photo. So if you have any questions or comments, please post them and I will get back to you (or those who are in the pictures)….

To say that it was labor intensive and involving would be an understatement of the year. I cannot thank enough the poor souls who helped me move my massive tank. I am sure that fish and my corals are appreciating their enormous efforts.

You don’t need to run to the bank. You don’t need to gas up your cars. You just have to be patient.. something you reefers should already know about. I am in the process of my move, and reno starting from June 30th 2008. Say whaaat? Read this if you missed all of that.

Jeff, the fearless co-captain, will be out of commission starting from July 3rd to the 19th. He is on his way to Europa, specifically the UK. Ahoy Jeff. Bring back some good fish and chips. Keep them fresh! You know me and stale chips!

Gregg, our guest volunteer, will be bringing you some action while we are MIA. We will line up some goodies before we leave, so that you don’t feel malnourished. I will be back within 2-3 weeks, after I chronicle and finish my move/reno. It should be a fun read. Jeff will also be gone for about 2-3 weeks, and will have the ‘adventures’ for ya’ll.

During the time we are gone, we will be posting once or twice a week. So check back often. It just wont be the regular everyday affair.

So exhale, as it is not good to keep your breath in. We will be back soon.

I planned out to house all of the livestock and equipment in a 300 gallon pond tote. I plan on renovating the basement bedroom into my fishroom, so no livestock will be on that level. That leaves me with an only option to keep all things in the garage. Because of the size of the tote, I will have enough room for all the coral, fish and rock. In addition, I will have space for my skimmer, and the topoff. The rest of the equipment will be next to the tote.

I was thinking of rebuffing the acrylic tank. There are a lot of micro-scratches that I want to remove. This would be the best time to attempt to do this task. I will be taking a lot if pictures so come back to check them out.

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.