How do you introduce new corals?

[Antny12]

Hey everyone,

just got a few shipments of corals yesterday and was curious on how everyone introduced their corals to their reefs. Do you let them sit in a frag rack to adjust to lighting/water? Do you put them straight to your rock work? If so, what’s your method?


specially..zoas.

 

[mphammer]

Hey everyone,

just got a few shipments of corals yesterday and was curious on how everyone introduced their corals to their reefs. Do you let them sit in a frag rack to adjust to lighting/water? Do you put them straight to your rock work? If so, what’s your method?


specially..zoas.

I like to dip for at least 30 minutes. Then the coral comes off whatever plug/rubble it was attached to. Depending on where I want it in my reef, I will either glue it directly to my reefscape or to a piece of rubble that I have. I do not light acclimate my coral.
Just make sure you dip

 

[Deschutes541]

I remove the frag plug, if possible, then Bayer dip.

That being said, I'm in the process of moving to a larger tank so I'll be using my current one as a QT.

 

[SifuMemphis]

Everyone has a different method as you saw above from the comments. It really depends on how "safe" you want to be. For me, I have a separate QT coral tank (20 gallons) where I put all coral in there for 30-76 days for monitoring for pest, potential ich etc, then once it looks solid, I move them over to my DT.

That being said, before going into my QT tank, I use Coral RX to dip, and occasionally Bayer. As others have mentioned, I also try to pop off the old frag plug and use a new one, but sometimes, this isnt possible.

 

[Antny12]

Yeah I dipped them in a solution for pests. I have the currently in a magnetic frag rack. I’ve usually always plopped the plugs into the rock but I’m interested in seeing if there’s more success taking them off the plug and onto the rock. Using reef safe glue I assume? How do you get the frag off the plug- razor? Will they attach themselves if water movement is turned off? Just trying to find new/better ways to do things and I’d like to eliminate all the frag plugs scattered throughout.

 

[mphammer]

Yeah I dipped them in a solution for pests. I have the currently in a magnetic frag rack. I’ve usually always plopped the plugs into the rock but I’m interested in seeing if there’s more success taking them off the plug and onto the rock. Using reef safe glue I assume? How do you get the frag off the plug- razor? Will they attach themselves if water movement is turned off? Just trying to find new/better ways to do things and I’d like to eliminate all the frag plugs scattered throughout.

I just dont like the look of frag plugs in my display and would rather the coral grow directly onto my rock. It would take too long for the coral to attach itself (a few days for palys/zoas, much longer for the harder stuff), so you'll want to use super glue. Just regular old, dollar general super glue is fine, just make sure you use the gel formula

 

[SifuMemphis]

Yeah I dipped them in a solution for pests. I have the currently in a magnetic frag rack. I’ve usually always plopped the plugs into the rock but I’m interested in seeing if there’s more success taking them off the plug and onto the rock. Using reef safe glue I assume? How do you get the frag off the plug- razor? Will they attach themselves if water movement is turned off? Just trying to find new/better ways to do things and I’d like to eliminate all the frag plugs scattered throughout.

I use coral cutters.

This is the fragging kit I use

 

[Antny12]

Thanks for the recommendations. Seems like I have a few people from alternate places telling me they cut the frag plug stem and let the zoas grow over. I’d like to try and take one and see if I could get them off the plug and onto a rock but a little nervous from the Paly toxin talk, and then I don’t want to kill anything- I have some high end zoas. Maybe I’ll get a cheaper frag and mess with it. Also, I’m assuming most people frag their colonies instead of strategically placing plugs for them to grow on in order to sell but that I’m sure requires some skill as I’ve never fragged before.

 

[Daniel@R2R]

I dip and go straight to rockwork.

 

[andrewey]

Antny12, in case it's of any interest to you and you want to understand more about the poly toxins, you can check out this great series:

The Dangers (and Myths) of Zoa Toxicity – Part 1

The oceans are full of creatures capable of killing us; one of the more surprising marine menaces is a group of popular aquarium corals known variably as “but

reefs.com

 

[Duncan Tse]

Temp acclimate, dip, rinse, and then straight into tank