How long do you let your frags heal?

[Lateral72]

SPS, LPS, Softies, Octocorals, Zoanthids and more. How long do you let your frags heal before shipping/selling them? It seems that there is a decline in the resiliency in shipped coral frags these days. I'm interested in hearing if you've had better experience shipping well healed frags v. fresh cuts?

Vote for the time range that best fits your average healing time among all species, and let us know if you've found the "optimal" healing time.

Vendors are welcome to respond.

 

[drainbamage]

sorry- that poll is way too much of a catch-all for options. If it's selling local, totally different from shipping- and if it's a zoa, totally different from an SPS. Not going to be able to answer it at all :neutral:

edit: any source for the "seems to be a decline in resiliency in shipped frags these days" ? I haven't seen this at all from just casual browsing and my own personal shipments, so would be interested in seeing where your info is tabulated from :nerd:

 

[cockybrock]

I'd say somewhere in the neighborhood of two weeks. When I frag anemone's, it takes about 2 to 3 weeks for them to heal. Now I wouldn't ship them until a month but I firmly believe they'd be just fine after two weeks. In fact, they're probably ok after one week....

BTA's are hardy little buggers!

 

[Electrobes]

I would say at least a month is possible. I think that's the best and fastest frags should go.

 

[Lateral72]

sorry- that poll is way too much of a catch-all for options. If it's selling local, totally different from shipping- and if it's a zoa, totally different from an SPS. Not going to be able to answer it at all :neutral:

I find it hard to call it a "catch-all". SPS, Zoas and Octocorals all have just about the healing time, IME. LPS is the only withstanding one, and I've found it only takes a week or so longer to heal.

edit: any source for the "seems to be a decline in resiliency in shipped frags these days" ? I haven't seen this at all from just casual browsing and my own personal shipments, so would be interested in seeing where your info is tabulated from :nerd:

Just an observation based on personal experience of years of receiving frags/corals, and observing the successes and failures of other enthusiasts. It seems there is an urgency for vendors to rush new cool corals to market, fearing a similar morph may show up somewhere else. (Opinion)

This thread is a good example. The coral in question was probably nipped and shipped within a week by the vendor, and it suffered.
https://www.reef2reef.com/forums/ne...rum/59050-wysiwymg-what-you-see-what-you.html

 

[fsu1dolfan]

Personally 2 weeks usually is a good base for most frags. Sometimes it can depend on how the frags reacts on whether to give longer healing time.

 

[nvfishman]

I prefer to buy and sell frags that are encrusted on the plug, But I will sell fresh cuts as well for alittle less and after just a few or 2

 

[drainbamage]

I find it hard to call it a "catch-all". SPS, Zoas and Octocorals all have just about the healing time, IME. LPS is the only withstanding one, and I've found it only takes a week or so longer to heal.

Fastest healing coral I know of is an LPS- perhaps second fastest would be many Zoas, all depending on what method has been employed to frag them. So yes- I would call it very much a catch-all to try and describe the entirety of the coral spectrum as that similar to have a singular answer (example- an SPS frag that can take a few weeks to begin encrusting, but the mother colony takes only a few days to start sprouting new polyps from the cut area- so which is the answer for the healed time?.) But that's just my experience, and just explaining why I wasn't able to put an answer to your poll.

Gotcha that it was just opinion- I just am always curious what time frame people are using when they say 'these days' as it's difficult to compare against the 'times' when the internet community wasn't nearly as strong (in the heyday of the internets, that was largely responsible for creating the demand for shipped corals.) Can't remember all that many people doing a lot of mail order prior to what, ten years ago? maybe less? It just creates a difficult comparison when there's not a lot of time frame.

 

[Wy Renegade]

Personally, I agree with encrusted on the plug theory. I hate receiving frags where the glue is still squeaky clean and half the time half the glued polyps or the frag is floating around in the bag because it came off during shipping.

 

[DrTrey]

I prefer to let my SPS, LPS, and zoas heal for at least a fortnight. Although, it seems that the LPS generally take longer to get their mojo back

 

[Lateral72]

Fastest healing coral I know of is an LPS- perhaps second fastest would be many Zoas, all depending on what method has been employed to frag them. So yes- I would call it very much a catch-all to try and describe the entirety of the coral spectrum as that similar to have a singular answer (example- an SPS frag that can take a few weeks to begin encrusting, but the mother colony takes only a few days to start sprouting new polyps from the cut area- so which is the answer for the healed time?.) But that's just my experience, and just explaining why I wasn't able to put an answer to your poll.

Understandable. We all have different means in which we call the corals "healed", or in this case "healed enough".

Gotcha that it was just opinion- I just am always curious what time frame people are using when they say 'these days' as it's difficult to compare against the 'times' when the internet community wasn't nearly as strong (in the heyday of the internets, that was largely responsible for creating the demand for shipped corals.) Can't remember all that many people doing a lot of mail order prior to what, ten years ago? maybe less? It just creates a difficult comparison when there's not a lot of time frame.

That's kind of my point. 5-10 years ago we didn't have all these crazy Australian corals coming in by the boatload. Around 5 years ago, I walked into the retail store of one of the most popular online high-end frag retailers on the internet today. Their specialty was Zoas at the time, and guess what? Every frag they had their tanks stocked with was fully healed and I did not see ANY that had less than 3 polyps. I bought a 6 head mini-colony of Cateye Zoas for $20. Fully healed, full health, etc. And this was ALL of their frags.

Fast forward to today, and the same company often sells 1 polyp frags for $100+ that are nipped and shipped in the same week. (They are a sponsor here interestingly enough).

 

[drainbamage]

That's kind of my point. 5-10 years ago we didn't have all these crazy Australian corals coming in by the boatload. Around 5 years ago, I walked into the retail store of one of the most popular online high-end frag retailers on the internet today. Their specialty was Zoas at the time, and guess what? Every frag they had their tanks stocked with was fully healed and I did not see ANY that had less than 3 polyps. I bought a 6 head mini-colony of Cateye Zoas for $20. Fully healed, full health, etc. And this was ALL of their frags.

Fast forward to today, and the same company often sells 1 polyp frags for $100+ that are nipped and shipped in the same week. (They are a sponsor here interestingly enough).

Australia only began exporting 5-10 years ago, so uhm...good point? :bigsmile:

Not sure how you determined the zoas were fully healed from inspecting the tanks, I wouldn't mind learning as after fragging, they often open up same day, and after a day or two I can't even tell where the cut was (if I only had to cut the mat between the polyps, and scraped the rock to pull the polyps off.) With LPS's and SPS's it's a lot easier to tell, but I'm not sure how you'd determine the healing on a frag of Euphyllia (or are we assuming LPS= Chalice for this conversation?)
As to your last- not sure what your point is, or rather, how it's relevant to the discussion- what does priceing have to do with the fragging/healing poll you started?

 

[Lateral72]

Australia only began exporting 5-10 years ago, so uhm...good point? :bigsmile:

Not sure how you determined the zoas were fully healed from inspecting the tanks, I wouldn't mind learning as after fragging, they often open up same day, and after a day or two I can't even tell where the cut was (if I only had to cut the mat between the polyps, and scraped the rock to pull the polyps off.) With LPS's and SPS's it's a lot easier to tell, but I'm not sure how you'd determine the healing on a frag of Euphyllia (or are we assuming LPS= Chalice for this conversation?)
As to your last- not sure what your point is, or rather, how it's relevant to the discussion- what does priceing have to do with the fragging/healing poll you started?

Reason I bring up Australia & pricing is simple, vendors are rushing to get frags out because they can make $100pp. The longer those frags sit on the vendor's racks healing, the less money they make. Price is irrelevant to my original discussion. By you brought up how mail-order was nonexistent 5-10 years ago.

All frags had grown onto the frag plugs and covered all the super glue. The LPS frags had grown down over the cut edges, SPS encrusted, etc..

For the sake of the LPS discussion, Chalices, Acans, Favia, etc. Any of the ones were you have to cut tissue. I consider Zoas healed when they have started to encrust on the glue glob or the frag plug, same for SPS. Even the slightest amount of encrusting. As far as the LPS, I consider them healed when the tissue has closed back up.

Based on personal experience, I have great success with healed frags, I've only lost 1 frag of corals I considered "healed". I've lost numerous fresh frags that weren't healed.

 

[drainbamage]

Reason I bring up Australia & pricing is simple, vendors are rushing to get frags out because they can make $100pp. The longer those frags sit on the vendor's racks healing, the less money they make. Price is irrelevant to my original discussion. By you brought up how mail-order was nonexistent 5-10 years ago.

All frags had grown onto the frag plugs and covered all the super glue. The LPS frags had grown down over the cut edges, SPS encrusted, etc..

For the sake of the LPS discussion, Chalices, Acans, Favia, etc. Any of the ones were you have to cut tissue. I consider Zoas healed when they have started to encrust on the glue glob or the frag plug, same for SPS. Even the slightest amount of encrusting. As far as the LPS, I consider them healed when the tissue has closed back up.

Based on personal experience, I have great success with healed frags, I've only lost 1 frag of corals I considered "healed". I've lost numerous fresh frags that weren't healed.

wouldn't it be safe to say that before mail order became so popular, the store had more time to sit on the frags as there were less people interested in them? Funny how you blame the stores but not the customers? Sorry, just playing DA here, but seems the argument discounts the increased demand placed by all the people across the interwebs in those same frags that would previously sit around the store for much longer. Again- not sure how price got into this, I brought up mail-order for the timeline of "these days", not for anything with pricing. If this is just another 'hate on high-end stuff' thread, please let me know and I'll shut up- I thought it was a discussion on health in frags :neutral:

For a zoa to spread and encrust over the super glue means the frag isn't just healed, but it's growing new polyps- surely that's not the minimal requirement for health, right? I have single polyps of many zoa's that simple take awhile before they feel like growing a new pup (lets take Bowsers for example.) Surely you're not saying that the frag is unhealthy for that 3-4 month period prior to it's growth of a new pup?

Again, if this wasn't meant as a discussion thread- forgive me and I'll shut up and not discuss anymore :bigsmile:

 

[Raggamuffin]

6 weeks is my rock solid line, I don't budge from it. If it makes it that long then the odds are great it will continue to thrive unless somebody does something really stupid to it which I take no responability for. Ask my local friends lol I get asked all the time "Hey how much for 10 Tubbs Blues? $10. OK can ya cut me a frag? Sure." they come over when I say times up and inevitably ask why there are 20 polyps, I always answer "it grew since I cut it." Nobody seems to mind the wait.

 

[Lateral72]

wouldn't it be safe to say that before mail order became so popular, the store had more time to sit on the frags as there were less people interested in them? Funny how you blame the stores but not the customers? Sorry, just playing DA here, but seems the argument discounts the increased demand placed by all the people across the interwebs in those same frags that would previously sit around the store for much longer. Again- not sure how price got into this, I brought up mail-order for the timeline of "these days", not for anything with pricing. If this is just another 'hate on high-end stuff' thread, please let me know and I'll shut up- I thought it was a discussion on health in frags :neutral:

Trust me, not a high-end hate thing at all. I've got/had plenty of of high-end stuff and will continue to buy more. You bring up some good points I hadn't thought about. Hot corals sell, and sell good. If there's a demand, why not sell the product? If the consumer is willing to take a big chance, I guess it's worth it.

Alright here's a scenario.

Company XYZ frags out a Watermelon chalice and lets it recoup for a couple days before listing it for sale. They sell out in hours and everything ships the next day. Two days after being listed and 5 days after being fragged, its been shipped across the country and is in a new tank. 6 out of 10 people loose their frags because they weren't ready to be shipped and not healed.

Now 4 of those 6 decide it was the Vendor's fault on go off on a forum-tirade, bashing the company or what-have-you. Was it worth it for Company XYZ to sell them before they were healed? Would waiting a week really kill the sale?

For a zoa to spread and encrust over the super glue means the frag isn't just healed, but it's growing new polyps- surely that's not the minimal requirement for health, right? I have single polyps of many zoa's that simple take awhile before they feel like growing a new pup (lets take Bowsers for example.) Surely you're not saying that the frag is unhealthy for that 3-4 month period prior to it's growth of a new pup?

Not so much as having to grow new polyps, but just an ever so slight increase in mat size. I'm not sure how to explain it, but looking at a polyp you can tell it has attached itself, instead of simply being glued down. There is usually a minimal increase in the mat size of the frag.

Again, if this wasn't meant as a discussion thread- forgive me and I'll shut up and not discuss anymore :bigsmile:

No worries. I love discussions. Keeps things interesting.

 

[drainbamage]

Trust me, not a high-end hate thing at all. I've got/had plenty of of high-end stuff and will continue to buy more. You bring up some good points I hadn't thought about. Hot corals sell, and sell good. If there's a demand, why not sell the product? If the consumer is willing to take a big chance, I guess it's worth it.

Alright here's a scenario.

Company XYZ frags out a Watermelon chalice and lets it recoup for a couple days before listing it for sale. They sell out in hours and everything ships the next day. Two days after being listed and 5 days after being fragged, its been shipped across the country and is in a new tank. 6 out of 10 people loose their frags because they weren't ready to be shipped and not healed.

Now 4 of those 6 decide it was the Vendor's fault on go off on a forum-tirade, bashing the company or what-have-you. Was it worth it for Company XYZ to sell them before they were healed? Would waiting a week really kill the sale?

In that situation I have the luxury of not being a company and having to decide that :tongue: that said, I do leave it up to those companies to decide if it is or not. Me? I've never boughten those sort of frags when i've paid decent for them, only when i've paid cheap. Hence why I always perk up when people accuse the high-end people of being bad- they seem to take the time to let things heal regardless of the impatience involved by the buyers.

 

[kacrocorals581]

I prefer to let my SPS, LPS, and zoas heal for at least a fortnight. Although, it seems that the LPS generally take longer to get their mojo back

Ha a fortnight! Awesome I cut my sps at lest two fortnight's Ahead of time I won't them to be entrusting before I sell but everything else 1 fortnight seems fine.

 

[mfinn]

I say atleast 2 weeks or more.

 

[Bubbles_B]

2-3 weeks for me....for anything.