Frag Sizing

mnat · Sep 15, 2012

Since it looks like SPS have now caught up with chalices in price, it is time to take a look at SPS frags and the best way to keep them healthy. Believe it or not a ton of it has to do with the actual size of the frag before it even gets put in your tank. That is right, no matter how good of a system you have you could already be behind the eightball. Here is an article that proves that:

http://www.coralmagazine-us.com/content/scientifically-smarter-frags

Before you go dropping serious dime on a SPS frag ask and find out what you are getting.

Gamble · Sep 15, 2012

Good read!! Hope to start seeing more 1.75" frags getting passed around.

wysiwyg · Sep 15, 2012

wow amazing article

watchguy123 · Sep 15, 2012

Well although interesting , I did not find the original.article that is being summarized, there is some data that is missing or not fully discussed. I have purchased lots of.frags, that I believe were glued out of water and they have almost all remarkably survived. Of the 15 one inch frags glued out of water, only 13% survived in this study , that means only one survived. Really? How long were they out of water. That survival rate is so poor, it boggles the mind. Need to find the original article and wish I knew if the journal is peer reviewed or not.

WesF · Sep 15, 2012

Yeah they are not doing something right. I glue all my frags out of water and losses are very rare.

dougers31 · Sep 15, 2012

I've always super glued frags out of the water and have had at least an 80% success rate if not higher. Also, most of them were smaller than 1 inch with some(torts) being as small as 1/8th to 1/4 inch.

Dave3112 · Sep 15, 2012

I glue 100% of my frags out of the water and while I don't keep track of my success rate I believe it is pretty high. I re-mount every frag I have purchased an all of them have had the glue applied directly to the coral out of the tank. If it was alive when I received it it's still alive today. I agree with sizes of frags being larger to help with survivability but I have made some SPS frags that we're literally 1 or 2 individual polyps, unintentionally, and had glued them to a plug just to see what would happen and 50% of those lived. So I don't know what their method in the article is. Sounds a little "fishy" to me :)

duke62 · Sep 15, 2012

maybe they are hobbyist and are tired of paying 100 bucks for a 1/2 in frag and want at least 2in frags for there money :)

Loki · Sep 15, 2012

I can't imagine a success rate of 13% with 1" frags! While I haven't done a great deal of feaggins SPS I have a 100% success rate. And one was an accidental 1/2" frag that I glued to a plug.

Chameleon · Sep 16, 2012

i literally fragged one polyp of an oregon tort and glued it down and its coming back amazingly. I glued it out of the water and within a week or two it had encrusted a good part of the glue i used. not sure about the validity here