Fragging Tips

[mx_tang]

Here are a few things I've used to speed up the fragging process:

1.) Have a frag buddy. If you have at least one other person helping you, then it makes life extremely easy for you.

2.) Frag your items the night before you intend to bag your livestock. Some people don't realize that cutting up a coral takes more than just a few seconds. You need to pick up the coral from the tank, find a nice piece of the coral to snip off, then take it out of the water briefly to cut it. Since this takes the most time during a fragging session, it's best to do this at least the night before you bag your corals to 1.) ensure that the coral is healthy and won't RTN or die and 2.) saves a lot of time.

3.) Place fragments either in a spare prop tank, on eggcrate, saucers, bowls, etc on your sandbed. I like using custard bowls to keep my recent frag cuttings. This helps keep the sand out of the frag bowls and allows them to stay within the bowl without getting blown away into an inaccessible part of your tank/reef. If you are cutting multiples of the same coral, you can place these frags in the same bowl, but try not to have them touch each other if you can help it. Since I do cut multiples of the same coral often, I cut some eggcrate into the shape of the custard bowls, so it fits snugly into the bowl. Then, I place each branch of the same corals vertically , so there's absolutely no way they can touch each other (unless someone or something in the tank pulls the corals out of the eggcrate).

4.) Put those large cups to use. If you save your thirstbuster or large plastic cups, then you can use these as fragging specimen containers. If I'm fragging more than 12 items, I'll lay out one cup per frag that I plan on bringing.

5.) Label bags. If you have a Labelmaker or Labelwriter, then you can use these to write the description of the coral on the bag. Otherwise, a sharpie or permanent marker will work well also. However, if you want to save time and still tag your bags with an ID, just write the name of the coral and description on a scrap piece of paper (or cut an 8.5X11 sheet of paper into smaller pieces), then use clear shipping tape (2" tape works really well) to cover the label and stick it to the bag. This generally works best when the fish bag is brand new and hasn't been inflated or filled with water. Also, keeping the part of the bag where the tape will stick to the bag clean and dry will give you a better seal.

6.) Use a fish bag to line the cups . This is similar to using a trashbag to line your trashcan, but on a smaller scale. Once you've found an appropriate bag for the plastic cup you use, then just fill all of the cups with water. I have found 6x20 bags work really well on 32oz cups from fast food restaurants or 8x20 bags work perfect for the 64oz Thirstbuster/Big Gulp cups.

7.) Double, triple, or quadruple frags that have sharp corners or live rock attached to them. Some of the smaller zip-lock bags are not very forgiving when it comes to puncture resistance, so a 2mil or 3mil fish bag works extremely well for hard corals or softies mounted on rocks. If you are fragging hard corals with a sharp leading edge (efflo's, soli's, caps, etc), then you should make provisions to ensure that those leading edges don't act like a knife edge and slit your fish bags open. An inexpensive solution I have learned is to go to the deli and ask or pay for some deli cups (they are transparent/translucent and people usually put potato salad, etc in them). They come with a lid, which will help keep the leading edge from even touching the fish bags. However, they don't store very much water, so you can perforate the deli cups with a bunch of holes until it looks like swiss cheese and put extra water in the bag, which will flow in/out of the deli cups freely. You need to use a larger bag for these types of corals, so only the largest zip-lock freezer bags, 8"-12" wide fish bags would be appropriate. Also, the larger the bag, the more water you can store in the bag, which helps dilute wastes more and buffers temp swings, etc better.

8.) Once you've finished placing each coral into their respective cups, you can seal them. When I want to get really fancy, I'll break out my heat sealer to close the bags initially. Then, I'll take a rubbermand to further prevent a leaky bag. Otherwise, the rubberband method works well. An even faster method involves zip ties, but they are slightly more expensive than rubberbands.

9.) Use an appropriately sized cooler to store the frags. Cramming fish bags into a box is a recipe for disaster because the bags contain sharp objects that can puncture the bags if too much pressure is applied to them. Styrofoam boxes work really well because they insulate temperature fluctuations and protect the corals somewhat in the event that you drop a box full of corals. They also prevent leaky bags from ruining them and have them bottom-out. The next best thing would be to use an appropriately sized box lined with a trashbag. This will help you keep any leaking bags from destroying the box and having it bottom-out.

10.) Use ice-packs or heat-packs during extreme weather. Although most people do local trading, others ship or bring corals to and from other states. Keeping the temperature as stable as possible will give the corals a greater chance of survival and less overall stress.

[polymorphus]

Well said... another tip is to make sure you dump out the water from your containers each time you frag a new coral. This helps reduce waste, the chance of "chemical warfare", and the stress of your livestock.

- g

[mx_tang]

When I frag the night prior to bagging them, I give them a chance to finish sliming up and hope that my larger water volume from the tank (compared to a fish bag) and protein skimmer help clean up the water.

I also forgot another tip, which is to try to wear gloves whenever possible. If you don't have gloves, you can take 2 fish bags and rubberband them at your wrists. Then, you can work on the corals, which is much less stressful for your corals. This is extremely important for those people who frag zoanthus colonies because they are extremely lethal if you've got a cut or have any of the palytoxin enter your body.

[ONAGI]

great tips!!! Thanks.

[mx_tang]

Originally posted by mx_tang
7.) Double, triple, or quadruple frags that have sharp corners or live rock attached to them.

I meant to say double, triple, or quadruple bag any frags that have sharp corners or live rock attached to them.