Is it true that frags that less then one inch have a low survival rate?

[transformer999]

as above..

Any comments on that?

 

[Jaysreefworld]

I don't believe so, most red setosa frags are 1/2" and many others. Others may feel different tho. IMO, if you're buying the frags from someone as long as they have healed then they are fine.

 

[franklypre]

small frags can survive pefectly well, but I personally feed 1" + does make for a better start.

 

[chrisqueenz]

Not in my experience

 

[Just2Many]

As long as the are healed should be good everything starts at below that size at some point.

 

[mike332211]

As long as your tank is stable, I get fresh cut and have almost 100% survival..

 

[fcmatt]

The main problem with such small frags that are glued to a plug and instantly sold is that
people do not research what conditions the tank they were cut from was in.

Was the alk at 10? Then you drop it in a tank with an alk of 8.
Was it under 400 Watt MH near the top? Then you place it in a tank with T5 near the bottom.
Was the coral in a very low flow position? Then you place it 6 inches away from a power
head.

Basically the shock of differing conditions, poor shipment conditions, poor handling while
being cut, etc... all lead to a dead frag.

But if you cut a small 1 inch frag, glue it down to a plug, and put it back into the same tank...
I bet you will have a great success rate.

my two cents.

 

[Alex T.]

I agree that it's got to be healed and starting to encrust the plug nicely. Conversely, if it's too large, I think it will have much harder time adjusting with respect to flow and lighting. I think this is why so many maricultured pieces don't do well. On the flipside, there are many people with great success that immediately frag a maricultured piece so that if the colony begins to RTN/STN, there's a much better chance of one of the frags making it.

 

[mike332211]

I like to put my frags in low light and low flow. I think it is less of a shock when lowering light and flow than to blast it with ether just after fragging. Start your frag low and slow then move it up to where u want it. As long as the colony is healthy before fragging u should be fine with even a 1/2" fresh cut frag.

 

[Der ABT]

Agree on the shock side of things, if the conditions are similar and water chem is good then there is no problem....
i dont really understand the healed vs fresh cut argument.
I would rather have a fresh cut frag, less likely to get tag alongs on the coral and the plug.....i almost always buy fresh cut and if its something expensive its often a smaller coral.

I may be wrong on the fresh vs healed but would like to see someone do a comparison...same size healed vs fresh cut being placed into a new tank with different parameters/lights or whatever and see if there is any difference in survival...my guess is no but ???


There was also an article floating around a while about about "extreme" fragging from a single polyp........if i break a small peice of an expensive coral its getting glued no matter how small...most make it

 

[Allmost]

These should help.


a Canadian Study : Testing the coral fragment size-dependent survivorship

a more recent study : (Scientifically) Smarter Frags

HTH,