20150329 Janesville Fragswap

It is amazing that the Wisconsin are has so many aquarium clubs with multiple fragswap or similar community events each year to provide vendors and hobbyists a fair trade platform for quality, and inexpensive experience to fill up their tanks. The event took place at the Janesville convention center, a small venue but sufficient for this function.

Before the event begins, all venfors busy prepping for their start.

Some sexy corals from one of the vendors

 Though there weren't as many vendors at this event (still an impressive 15 or so) as the Madison fragswap event, the quality of livestock and corals is definitely no lesser than the Madison swap.

Torch coral of variety colorations

Coral pricing divided by glowstick

One of the vendors provided some diversity with sea-pen, and a large group of lyre tail anthias

Cool looking nudibranch, though I don't recommend the average hobbyist keeping these difficult to maintain animals

20150111 Coral Frag tank

For those growing coral either as a hobbyist or a retailer, frag tanks is almost a must have as you propagate your coral to grow out in it. For the most part people tend to house their frag tank either at a side or behind the scene but still connected to the main water body of their display tank. The benefit of this is to maintain stable water perimeters as frag tanks tend to hold smaller water volume thus prone to status swings. By linking to the main system not only the water remain more or less stable. It'll be a smooth transition too to transport the freshly propagated coral into the frag tank, or vise versa.
As for the dimension of the frag tank. I recommend something no less than 8" deep but not more than 1' high. This gives you enough room to maneuver also provide room for coral to grow if necessary, but not too deep to prevent light generation and water circulation issues. For the width and length, I guess it really is up to you on how much you wish to keep and how spacious if your set up.
One thing I need to point out is that many people ignored the proper movement in the frag tank. So I have seen many cases of "flow dead spot" in these type of tanks. One smart idea I have seen from a friend is to place buffers so the water flows through all corners of the tank.

2014-04-29 Deal of the Day-Acan

Ok, I really don't understand why are Acan frags so freaking expensive! I have kept them and they grow really fast for me!
Anywho, I found this on Pacific East Aquaculture and man is this a gem!
And $89 price tag for a frag of this size- 12 heads, is a steal~
http://www.pacificeastaquaculture.com

If you have never kept Acan, here are some tips:
Water quality- the usual reef parameter- no trace of nitrate.
Water Temperature, I would say that the polyps and tentacles expands the best when it's slightly cooler at around 75-77
Calcium- it is a large polyp stony coral so you need adequate amount of it
Light- T-5 seems to be the universally best light source. If you use LED or Metal Halide, make sure to place them medium to bottom. The color will become very light and eventually bleach out when there is too much light. They can actually do pretty well in dimmer condition because you can also supplement their energy by spot feeding- I've used a turkey baster to feed them grind up shrimp, mysis shrimp, spiraling enhanced brine shrimp, etc.
One word of warning, do not put them on sand, especially if you have something in your tank who likes to stir up the sand, they get irritated by sand quite easily.

Frag time!!

It been a long while since I fragged anything, last week one of the local pet stores in town- Animart in madison, WI was giving away some of their never used fixtures for free. So I took a couple coralife power compact 130w lights to replace what I had on the mantis tank.

For some odd reason the green star polyps just dont do very well in my 92 corner reef while most other sps and lps as well as soft corals are thriving. So before the entire colony comes to non-existence, I decided to frag it and attempt to revive the colony in my mantis tank.

I then also fragged some soft corals, mostly pumping xenia and Kenyan tree, they grow like weed.

Temporary frag tank

I am sick of fragging corals and just parking them in my display tank!

So i went to the store and got some ceiling grill to make my make-shift temporary frag shelf in my sump.

First I spent an hour clean out my sump and scrubbed everything clean. Then I cut the grill to fit the tank. I then drilled four small holes on the plastic top and hang the grill using fishing lines.

At the moment I dont have too many frags but will be expecting quite a bunch in the near future. I am placing some of the low-maintenance frags here such as some shrooms and leather. The lighting for my sump is a reef ready marineland LED

Cliff's deal steal

I have previously gotten some acropora frags from a fellow reefer Cliff. Today I picked up another piece (photos to come) and noticed this beautiful piece of brain worm (platygira sp) coral about 6" in diameter and 4" tall dome. He bought it from the same persom whom i bought my zoster butterfly and watanabe angel from! What a steal!