New frag plugs...what do i do to prep them?

1DeR9_3Hy

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I goofed up and didnt think about this before today. I just picked up 7 zoa frags that are unmounted. They are just sticking to substrate, and will blow around unless i anchor them to something.

Onto the frag plug question. I picked up a bag of plugs from BRS, do i need to do anything to them before i can use them?
 
Yep, your good to go. The ceramic and plastic ones don't need to be cured. The others are cement I guess, I soak them in fresh water for a few weeks prior to use.
 
Thanks!

If i didnt leave my card reader at work i be able to show everyone the people eaters, nuke greens, firecrackers and everything else i just got for $30.

Im excited :D
 
That was easy :)

I dipped everything in a bucket of CoralRX (www.coralrx.com) for 10 minutes, then drained that bucket and re-filled it with some SW. I rinsed the plugs well, then dried them well. I used a piece of stryo laying around and pushed the plugs into them to hold them while i dropped a pile of glue on each plug. Then it was just a matter of pulling the lose frags out, drying them off, and shushing them on glue. Took all of 5 minutes, and now i have 8 new frags for the frag tank :)

2 of them are already opening up!
 
As far as frag plugs go i was just using some tile that i bought from lowes that I washed in hot salt water for a while.These were just for personal use so do the tiles have any possibility of corroding in my system?
 
I dont think so, iver read that those are ok as long as they dont have a coating on them (i dont know what kind of coating they would have...). I was going to do that, but i like the clean and orderly appearance of the plugs with egg crate.
 
Alright, here are the pics. The flash brings the white balance pretty close to accurate...but not all there yet. Its just a Nikon P&S, but it gets the job done :)


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And of course the green sin that every new fragger has :p
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Thanks, im anxiously awaiting to see how the greens in the first pic turn out. They were a drab green yesterday, but today they have picked up more of the lighter shade you see and a little florescence...

The tank i pulled these out of is a well established zoa/paly colony tank at the LFS. All he puts into it are frags of nicer Z's and P's, so pretty much everything i pulled out of the rubble is guranteed to look good once the polyps cover the plugs.
 
Dipping is the equivalent of condoms. Only necessary if you like to keep your coral/penis intact :)

I have seen with my own eye in my own tanks, and on here what all sorts of different critters can do if not removed asap from corals. There are several dips out there, everyone has there favorite...mine happens to be CoralRX. Its all natural, smells of citrus or something similar. Everything in the above pics were dipped in CoralRX for 10 minutes and then swished vigorously and inspected closely looking for pest/egss. I pulled them out of the dip, rinsed them off and put them in the rack. Within 2-3 hours everything was open and looking great.

Also CoralRx carries a decent MAP price which allows LFS to carry the item and still make a buck on it. I lean towards helping LFS whenever possible.
 
Dipping is the equivalent of condoms. Only necessary if you like to keep your coral/penis intact :)

I have seen with my own eye in my own tanks, and on here what all sorts of different critters can do if not removed asap from corals. There are several dips out there, everyone has there favorite...mine happens to be CoralRX. Its all natural, smells of citrus or something similar. Everything in the above pics were dipped in CoralRX for 10 minutes and then swished vigorously and inspected closely looking for pest/egss. I pulled them out of the dip, rinsed them off and put them in the rack. Within 2-3 hours everything was open and looking great.

Also CoralRx carries a decent MAP price which allows LFS to carry the item and still make a buck on it. I lean towards helping LFS whenever possible.

Hmm, u really learn something new every day! Thanks for the info, I will be buying some in the morning.

Can you please elaborate on how you rinse them? I assume you use tank water?
 
Hmm, u really learn something new every day! Thanks for the info, I will be buying some in the morning.

Can you please elaborate on how you rinse them? I assume you use tank water?

I use a small 2 gallon bucket (Its the "55" gallon bucket of Coral Pro salt from Red Sea), fill it 1/4 of the way up with tank water. Then i put it in my sump, and clamp the bucket to the side of the sump with a large metal clamp. I do this to regulate the temp of the water in the bucket so that there is as little fluctuation in water params as possible.

....Dips as far as i can tell irritate all corals to some extent, so if you can limit other irritations its only going to be better for the corals. Getting back on track....

Once the bucket is clamped to the side of my sump with water in it, i drop a 200 gph pump into to get water flowing. Once the pump is in, i add two capfulls of CoralRX to the bucket. Then i add the corals, and wait ten minutes. Once they are in for ten minutes, i swish them very vigorously in the dip then for 10-15 seconds then place them in the tank. About 20 minutes later i come back with a turkey baster and blow off any slime that may have built up.

I have yet to have one coral not open up (most within 2 hours), and just last night i dipped some Palys that had a fungus problem....the dip took care of that as well.

Ill be dipping a frag of Nightmare palys i am getting today, and a colony lunar eclipses i am getting friday as well.
 
I use a flattened blob of putty on top of the plug and pry it loose when I am ready to place the coral in a permanent location then reuse the frag plug.
 
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