Frags...and their role in the industry and hobby!

As far as I’m concerned, nothing has resulted in greater growth tin the reef hobby than the development of techniques to propagate grow, and distribute coral frags. “Fragging” has gone from a sort of weird Vietnam-era connotation to a regular part of the reef keeping vernacular. Thanks to the hard work and dedication of hobbyists worldwide, the “frag swap” is a term used to describe an amazing cultural event in our hobby/lifestyle. Remarkable that the frag swap only came about within the last decade and a half or so, yet is a pervasive part of our culture.

So it got me thinking about coral frags, and their place in our hobby. Let’s look a bit deeper about just what goes into preparing, healing, and distributing a coral frag on the commercial level. I mean, the act of fragging a coral is not really “rocket science”, as you probably have guessed, and we don’t posses “Magic Frag Shears” that make perfect coral frags for the world. There is not much I can write here that will ad to the body of knowledge on fragging technique. I can share with you a few of the things that work for us, as well as my philosophies on the world of coral fragging, however.

There is much more to bringing a frag to the market than just cutting it off the parent colony and slapping it on a plug, believe it or not!

The first step in fragmenting a coral is to make sure that the parent colony is properly prepared…that doesn’t mean that you simply yank the coral colony out of a box of freshly-arrived pieces from Indo or wherever, and take the shears to it and hack it into fifty pieces before it has the opportunity to RTN into oblivion, slap it on a plug, get it out on the “inter-webs” and sell it as a “limited edition” in 12 hours for big dollars..No! That’s not fragging- that’s called “chop-shopping”, and it’s a non-sustainable, non-professional, and dubiously-ethical practice that still occurs in some quarters, unfortunately.

A healthy frag starts from a healthy parent colony- one which has been acclimated to captivity, and is showing nice healthy growth and color. Particularly in “SPS” corals, such as Acropora, where you frag the coral is as important as WHEN you frag it. Keep in mind that, in the majority of Acros, growth of the colony occurs at the tips of the branches, which is where the bulk of commercially-propagated frags come from. Sure, you could cut some of the horizontal tissue at the base of the colony, and that would be a frag, but you’d probably not be producing a frag that many reefers would be interested in (unless you’re fragging something like an encrusting Montipora species…). So, the so-called “growth tips” are a perfect starting point, as are individual branches.




Depending upon who is doing the actual fragging, the frag will be either a micro-sized growth tip, or a more realistic size that actually looks like- well, a brach of coral (novel concept to some vendors, I know…)! To my knowledge, there is no magic as to which size frag does better…it’s really all about the health of the coral that it came from, and how the frag has healed after cutting.

Honestly, there is no real trick to mounting a cut frag on a plug. About the only tip I can give you is to use as little glue as possible to get a firm mount on the plug. The last thing we want in a commercial situation is to have our little frags blowing off their plugs and into the oblivion that is a 30 foot long raceway, so we make extra sure to get a good tight fit before we place the frag in our system. One tip: Keep as much coral surface area exposed to water/flow as possible, as this will promote gas exchange, keep fresh water flowing to the damaged tissue (yeah, even fragging is “damage”, right?) and quicker healing, and then growth.




While frags are healing, inspect daily for signs of tissue recession or die-off. Often times, even with a frag, you can save it if a tissue necrosis situation arises, simply by snipping off the affected part and placing it back in your system. If it’s at the base- easier still. Just cut off the bottom, re-glue, and hope for the best. It’s also important to keep the base clean of algae and detritus, as these can smother the healing coral tissue and slow down encrusting on the plug.



Important points and factors about making and growing out “SPS” frags to a saleable size:

*Be sure to dip parent colony and frags after cutting in mild disinfectant solution to kill bacteria and promote healing.

*Don’t hack up the entire parent colony unless you are trying to save a dying colony. Always save some of the parent colony, for a myriad of reasons.

*Use minimal amounts of glue- just enough to achieve a bond between the plug and the coral.

*Keep the base of the plug as free from excessive algae an detritus as possible to create a good surface for the coral to adhere to.

*Provide sufficient water movement to assure that significant flow reaches the frags. This will export gasses, move nutrients in and wastes out of the coral, and provide a cleaner, more oxygen-enriched environment for recovery and growth.

*Feed. A lot. Feed daily. Corals need light, food, and other additives, like potassium and amino acids, for optimum growth, health, and color.

*Allow the coral time to encrust. Depending on lighting, flow, feeding, and health of the frags, this may take between two to three weeks or more. Yeah, that’s right- it takes a while, and that means that you may not see a “return on investment” for some time. Oh well. Welcome to the coral propagation biz!




OH, I’ve breached the subject: The most important ingredient to a great coral frag: Patience. You simply cannot rush the process. If you ship a frag that is not fully healed, it has a much greater chance of dying before it ever grows to a significant size. When you think about it, even though you are sort of simulating a naturally-occuring process when you frag an “SPS” coral, it’s still a traumatic event, and the coral needs time to recover.



Hobbyists, industry “players”, and those who aspire to become serious propagators must embrace the practice of…patience. We cannot afford to play the “chop shop” game anymore, and we need to think about long-term sustainability of our practices. That means utilizing techniques that terrestrial farmers do about rotating through crops, and producing fewer frags on a more frequent, yet regular basis, to give the corals time to recover, and to create systems where you always have fresh “crops” of your best-selling varieties coming up at regular intervals. Although it’s a relatively simple concept, it’s not always easy to do.




The temptation as a vendor to please every customer every time by always having frags of desirable varieties available can take you off of your game. Many a good vendor has resorted to offering “fresh cuts” because they didn’t want to lose the sale today. Artificially manipulating supply and demand by alternatively flooding the market or holding back is not cool, either. Something is “LE” because someone is not taking the time to grow out sufficient quantities of the coral! The rush to be first to market is not a long-term strategy for stability, IMHO. Why not create several “crops” and a regular system to assure that the coral is available. Guess what? The consumer will happily pay a good price for a healthy, viable product! $100 for a quarter inch nub is not a long-term viable marketing strategy that will help the hobby. Why not make hundreds of frags over time for a more affordable price?



The goal should be to produce a long-term sustainable market with fair prices for consumers by having the widest variety of corals available as often as possible. no one vendor or propagator can possibly have every variety available at all times…And that’s okay. The goal is to have an industry where the consumer can go to a number of different vendors and find the coral that they are looking for at any given time. This keeps the market fair and honest, and benefits the natural reefs because we won’t have to go hack wild colonies off of the reef to satisfy consumer demand.



Truly sustainable markets require propagators to adopt a long-term view, and to see the bigger picture. It’s really, really easy to simply calculate ho much a box of wild corals costs, then how many frags you can make and sell for “x” amount each as quickly as possible. The reality is that we as a hobby and industry need to keep higher standards for ourselves- and most important- for the corals that we treasure.

Obviously, I’m speaking for myself here- not the industry, the hobby, or even my company. I’m sharing my personal philosophies here, and your opinions may vary widely!

I’d like to hear your thoughts, comments, and criticisms on the frag market…as always, your feedback is what makes things so interesting!

Until next time…

Stay Wet!

Scott Fellman
Unique Corals

 

I enjoy reading your writing

 

Thanks, I enjoy writing this stuff!

-Scott

 

So do I! Keep it coming,very interesting and informative.

 

I enjoyed the read with a nice cup of noodles. Thank you for the small look into your business. I can really tell you are passionate about this hobby.