Hot and Heavy Topic of the Week!

I don't have issues with frag tanks at all. I love the idea of spreading my corals around to local reefers. I don't understand why people like the look of a lot of small frags in their tanks? I buy small fags, yes, but I love to see them grow out. Does anyone else do this?

I still think we should treat corals with respect even though they are lower creatures. I'm not some hippy-dippy or anything bc believe me, I love beef and all that it is about. :) However, I think that the cattle deserve a certain level of respect for the sacrifice they are making to feed me and my family.

This I think is for another topic another week so we can focus on the main topic here- Why do people frag frags and buy small frags? Why don't people let their frags grow out?

People frag frags to try and make money, they don't care about letting corals get to nice colonies.

Jarred- do you personally ever frag? I haven't fragged anything but my sun coral which was too big for my tank. lol.

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Originally Posted by mallorieGgator

Why do people frag frags and buy small frags? Why don't people let their frags grow out?

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I really don't think the issue is greed as seems to be implied...it is more about impatience and addiction. Many reefers become collectors of certain types of corals...Z&P's are one of the biggest collector corals because there are so many different morphs to collect.

Being impatient means wanting the the next coolest morph now. Not willing to wait or able to afford it via paychecks or for it to drop in price...many reefers turn to funding their addiction by selling or trading other collectable polyps in their collection to get their next Z&P fix.

I can't help but wonder if impatience is why many are frustrated with only being able to get small frags...we'd all rather purchase colonies to get instant gratification of being able to have them make more impact in our tanks. If it was really about watching corals grow...what could be more rewarding than starting with one polyp, right? Obviously none of us want a one or two polyp frag...but many are willing to settle for it to get that latest morph.

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Originally Posted by mallorieGgator

Jarred- do you personally ever frag? I haven't fragged anything but my sun coral which was too big for my tank. lol.

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As this is a hobby, I guess the real answer to your question is that I frag frags in order to get more colorful frags without having to spend money doing so. Things are tight enough and we all know how expensive this hobby can be. I'm not a LFS or a vendor with tons of frags. I also don't like the look of small little plugs all over but I would rather have a lot of different colorful coral that will eventually fill my tank one day vs 1 coral with 50p on it that I had to wait a year to get there. Also, imo by fragging frags or coral that isn't growing, you get much quicker growth....but that's in my experience.

(Even though your question wasn't to me..)

Good answers everyone! I am enjoying reading these responses and honesty. I am thankful that I can hear why people do what they do in order to understand why people do what they do. :)

Fragging coral is good for the coral and good for the hobby. Hording and not fragging corals is more unethical and greedy IMO. I know of a lot of nice corals that have been lost in people's tanks because they never fragged it. When I find a nice morph of acro I frag it as soon as possible and get a piece to a friend. The longer a coral stays in only one tank the higher the risk that it will be lost forever. Common practice among SPS guys. I have no issues with people selling frags either. Helps spread corals around. In the end this is a dead horse issue.:dead_horse2:

I think it is also worth mentioning that I just went to Los Angeles and toured every importer/wholesaler facility. I saw ZERO nice zoa colonies. There are very few seriously nice colonies being brought in. New desirable morphs are rare finds. If nobody fragged them they wouldn't be available.

Am I missing something here? Every colony has to start from a frag or a spore jettisoned from a colony during a spawning event. I have poccilaporra and kenya tree( as an example) that can show up anywhere in my tank. In a perfect world we would all grow colonies out I'm sure. However the reality is that due to size constraints, crashes, economic issues divorces, even boredom. Tanks are broken down and selling a large colony is nearly impossible. Very few young people have the resources and the stability to keep a tank gowing to mature a colony.
I am lucky enough to have been able to move up from tank to tank and preserve some, not all of my colonies. Yea I think they are great. I also (to my lfs dismay) am way past spending alot of money on a frag I want. I trim my colonies continuously and just this week broke off large pieces of sps. What should I do with these frags?? What is the difference if it was an accident or not.

@daddybiggs I think the question is mostly geared toward zoanthid and palys that get fragged into single polyps and sold for big $$$. And even more so, aimed at the people who buy a small frag (2 polyps?) and frag it to a single to try to recover some funds or trade for the next hot polyp.