Called/visited all LFS ~ No frag plugs sold !!

[Avalanche Wolf]

I called and or visited all the LFS today . No one around sells plugs !!


So cough up the secret gals and guys , where are ya gettin at ?

 

[NeveSSL]

*cough* crumbletop *cough* c_stowers *cough*



Brandon

 

[crumbletop]

LOL. I think mostly people buy them on line from places like http://www.bostonaquafarms.com/

C_stowers and I made a form to make our own plugs and made a bunch but really we need a better form to make them from. That would be a great reef club project at some point. They are easy to make if you have a good form to do them in. Our supply is running mighty low.

 

[eyebedam]

Ebay the sellers name is oceanswonders

 

[crumbletop]

Good find, Jason!

http://www.oceanswondersonline.com/

They combine items for only one shipping charge which is nice. They come either 20 or 25 to a bag (discs or plugs), and there is a 20% discount for orders of 25 bags or more. I'm in for 5 bags or so if people want to go in on a group buy.

 

[fallinapart]

Jack, I'm in for 2 bags (one bag of reef plugs 25 count, and one bag of reef disks 20 count).

Norman

 

[Avalanche Wolf]

I am In for 2 bags as well of the texted plugs

 

[DMBillies]

I've been experimenting with making some of these myself. I meant to give a few out at the meeting to get input on how they worked for everyone so I can tweak the recipe. I found a bunch of silicone ice cube trays at target, which released the plugs very well. The ones I made are more like discs than plugs, but now that I know a silicone form will work well to release the concrete I'm thinking of good ways to create a home made version of a plug.

$5 for 25 plugs isn't too bad, but it's easy to burn through an entire bag or two for a frag swap and constantly ordering them online is annoying. I was thinking that if I could mass produce enough of them that I could bring a supply to meetings to share around the club for near cost (which is almost nothing) and keep everyone supplied.

 

[crumbletop]

I'd like to see the silicone icecube trays. We have the supplies to make tons of these things, and could probably make 500 at a pop pretty easily if we had decent forms. Do the trays make circular discs? How big?

 

[mamagoose45]

Jack, they make a circular disc, a little bigger around than a half dollar. The mold is about 3/4" high, but we haven't been making them the full mold size - most of them have been about 1/2" thick. The bottom of the mold is shaped like a hexagon, and then the sides slope up. Maybe we can get some pictures of them tonight and post them...

 

[lkr]

Go to your walmart, probably find miniture muffin pans on the baking pan aisle. I have seen heart shaped at Valentines or tree shaped for Christmas. Silicone bakeware is the new thing in the kitchen.

 

[DMBillies]

Agreed that silicone bakeware would also work well, but the molds are relatively expensive when compared to with the ice cube trays we bought in the 1-spot at Target (I think we bought enough to make about 80 at a time). In any case, I have never seen any kind of silicone tray that would create a "plug" as opposed to a disk...so I'm concocting some ways to do that.

 

[crumbletop]

I think I personally prefer the discs to the plugs. Discs are easier to glue to rock. Plugs are easier to set on a rack if you are propagating, though if you don't have any turbo snails that bump things around, you could also use discs on a rack. Anyway, I'm really interested in seeing one of those silicone ice cube deals.

 

[DMBillies]

Jack- I prefer the plugs for transporting them to swaps and stuff (any time you are using egg crate). I have been trying to get a good mix of concrete to sand so that the plugs will stay together well, but not so well that you can't also chip pieces off the plugs rather easily (making it so that when you want to put them in the tank you can make them look a little more natural, flatten the bottoms off, and fit them into specific places).

 

[crumbletop]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10800624#post10800624 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by DMBillies
Jack- I prefer the plugs for transporting them to swaps and stuff (any time you are using egg crate). I have been trying to get a good mix of concrete to sand so that the plugs will stay together well, but not so well that you can't also chip pieces off the plugs rather easily (making it so that when you want to put them in the tank you can make them look a little more natural, flatten the bottoms off, and fit them into specific places).

Now that would be the best of both worlds