New Frag Tank

[maxalmon]

Originally Posted by sk8shorty01
Man you have a gorgeous set of corals there. I wish I had even a tenth of all of that. I just started my reef so I have almost nothing. Hey, gotta start sometime I guess haha.
You'll get there, just keep it small and managable and learn everything you can, try swapping frags with local reefers, best way to start and it keeps you overall cost down.

 

[maxalmon]

This is going to be a long day, I have about 20 corals to frag.
1st is this acro, best thing to do is be very organized and plan everything out
I have some pretty unique concepts, like using the stainless whisk to hold frags while they harden, it's perfect because you can use various areas of the whisk depending on its angle so that the slant of the frag stays vertical and hardens correctly, no matter what you will never get a pefectly flat base that sits perfect on the reefplug.
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Also, If if I have a frag that has a really bad slanted base, i'll first glue in a small coral wedge and let it harden on the plug, then glue the frag to the wedge and plug, this way the frag has a very stable base. I have a drawer thats filled with a crushed up old coral head, I use these pieces for various projects and it comes in handy all the time.
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I think the total for this project was 14 frags and I only used half the mother colony, crab is still alive and with the other half....I couldn't resist doing the 3 mini frag tips, why waste anything...

 

[maxalmon]

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[reefkprz]

FRAG ON, WITH YOUR BAD SELF! nicely done.

 

[reefkprz]

just an Idea on the cloves, next time try and place one on a lower portion of the piece you want encrusted IME they grow upward faster than down. see if it works for you.

 

[maxalmon]

Last frag, I should add that I'm running fresh carbon in the tank and decided to only do a small portion of the fragging as I don't wana slime my tank. Last pics is of a mini, min frag of the orange cap. I'll do another round in a few days

 

[maxalmon]

Originally Posted by reefkprZ
just an Idea on the cloves, next time try and place one on a lower portion of the piece you want encrusted IME they grow upward faster than down. see if it works for you.
Know that I think about it, your right, I think I might move these guys

 

[maxalmon]

I think I'm going to try the acan now, just because I've never done one and I'm itching to try it....Any thought on the best way?

 

[maxalmon]

Well, that was a little nerve racking.....
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Acan Lord vs Hacksaw vs Screwdriver = nightmare
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Using a hacksaw and very slow controled motions I sliced thru the top of the acan then under and used a screwdriver to pry the pieces apart, then used a razor to slice thru the tissue.
Ended up with 3 pieces, I'll take them apart a little more to see how to best frag them. I want to be able to frag them into pretty small pieces and this looks to be a pretty hard task
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Last pic was the Atlantis pink polyp cap, I simply couldn't resist myself

 

[maxalmon]

Whats interesting is that even though these were basically pryed apart, they broke along the polyp ridge and I got a pretty clean brake with minimal tissue damage, true test will be the next few days.

 

[triga22]

This is awsome! What are you doing with the frags? Selling them? Trading?

 

[reefkprz]

Originally Posted by maxalmon
I think I'm going to try the acan now, just because I've never done one and I'm itching to try it....Any thought on the best way?
hey I talked to my buddy Matt (my mentor and saviour) about fragging acans, he reccomends a tile saw, or dremel cutting tool its a lot cleaner cut through the tissue. since you did it with the hacksaw and screwdriver he suggests letting it slime up in a bucket of water for at least a half hour. his concern is the hacksaw is rough on tissue (more tear than cut) and could expose the acan to a higher risk of bacterial infection.
he said they are really tough and hold up to fragging really well, with a tile saw cutting through the middle of a head really isnt an issue. hope this helps (now that your all done

)

 

[maxalmon]

This is so addictive, hard part is that I just recieved 300 reefplugs from B-Aquatics today and I'm itchin to get this tank filled up. I also ordered another sunset monti, rainbow monti and a pokerstar monti, I seem to be leaning towards montis, can ya tell, LOL....
I'm feeling like I'm over having acro's, who knows, next week I'll be back on the acro thing, plus I'm really getting into all the ultra cool echino's that I'm starting to find, the echinos are more addictive to me than anything else and I think I'm going to focus on them, problem is that they grow slow and getting good frags is a real PIA...
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I'm starting to put together frags packs, I like the idea of offering the all-inclusive monti pack, something like a frag each of sunset, superman, rainbow, pokerstar, purple haze and peppermint, all in one nice little frag pack, then do the same with the echinos and acros
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The micro frag pack is also in the works, I have 2 colonys that have doubled in size and I think I can frag them, this will wait because at $80-120 a polyp I'm a little nervous
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All I know is that this tank is way too small as it's already filled up, but I think I'm going to clear out some of my basic stuff to make room for more exotics.

 

[maxalmon]

Originally Posted by reefkprZ
he said they are really tough and hold up to fragging really well, with a tile saw cutting through the middle of a head really isnt an issue. hope this helps (now that your all done

)
I'm looking into buying a table top wet saw that has a 4"blade, it's more for jewelry making and small, about the size of a phone book, what I'd really like is one of those bone saws that the doctors use in the ER, Ok now it's time for me to go sedate myself...

 

[maxalmon]

Sedatives didn't work...LOL...This camera is really starting to tick me off, no matter what I do I can't capture the colors of this acro, colors are dusty rose base with neon green tips intermixed, neon blue tips, neon purple tips, anyone know the name of this acro?
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2nd pic, This monti is my favorite, it's pale green with bright aqua colored polyps, Name?
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3rd & 4th pic, entire colony from base to tips is bright aqua and grows really fast, this one I frag tomorrow

 

[maxalmon]

Next couple of projects. These are the neon green and orange cloves, kinda $ so I wanted only 1 polyp per frag.

 

[maxalmon]

Another thing that I do is glue a reefplug to the base of a reefdisk, I wish that they made the larger disk with the small peg on the bottom. The reason I do this is so that things don't get knocked over, crabs are always moving things around, plus the tank has some serious flow and frags can get pushed around

 

[maxalmon]

This acro is huge, (6-7") I decided to just frag 1/3 of the colony. It's kinda browned out due to being moved around the last week or two (tank to tank) tips are starting to color-up. This entire project took me about 4 minutes, snip, snip, glue, glue and back into the frag tank. You can also see the way that I glue the plugs to the disks

 

[maxalmon]

7am fraging project.... I like to create these scultural frags, kinda fun and if you use enough corals frags they encrust pretty quick.
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1st. I create the base with a reef disk glued to a reefplug so that I can keep them inplace.
2nd. I try and find unusual or interesting pieces of busted up coral
3rd. You have to think ahead a little bit as you need the base of the coral to be fairly flat so that it will sit on the disk correctly, if not, then I use a file and file the base down flat.
4th. I try and brace the taller parts by digging thru my coral rubble and finding wedges that I can glue to the base. Try and find something that is a close fit, it's also easier to glue into place if you hold it on it's side and the wedge falls into place then add a coulpe drops of glue.
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I try and create these according to the type of coral thats being fragged.

 

[maxalmon]

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