Magnetic frag racks have gone from being a niche accessory for managing a few new corals, to a must have accessory for nearly all reef keepers who need someplace safe to store their frags. Frag racks have gone from being little more than DIY projects of eggcrate and suction cups to fully engineered and fabricated structures with natural designs and built in mounting magnets.
Over the years many different companies have tried their hands at putting their spin on the magnetic frag rack but recent offerings from Aqua Rocks has quickly rose to the top of our list for a number of reasons. The first and primary reason we have really taken a liking to the Aqua Rocks frag rack is how they look – these dark black structures are peppered with pink accents and they disappear in an established reef tank better than any we’ve yet seen.
Other natural-ish looking frag racks still stand out and look like they were freshly placed into the aquarium for weeks or months but the darker coloration of the Aqua Rocks looks like it’s always been there, save for the splashes of glossy pink paint. The other reason we’re digging what Aqua Rocks is making is that their frag racks are very light weight, being made of a material that we presume to be a dense hard resin which is not as hard as ceramic, not as soft as some flexible resins, but lighter than either of them.
Being light weight is not a ‘feature’ we look for in most aquarium products but in the case of magnetic frag racks it means that smaller magnets can be used, or the magnets used will be able to hold more and larger coral frags and mini colonies without falling or becoming precarious. It’s not exactly accurate to call Aqua Rocks’ frag holders a frag ‘rack’ as they are more like small reef aquarium sculptures coming in a variety of shapes and sizes ranging from the basic flat piece to more elaborate branching structures.
Our biggest criticism about the Aqua Rocks frag sculptures is that they have holes to receive that standard sized stems of most coral frag plugs but their holes are drilled at an angle which doesn’t lend itself well to being reversible, that is being fixed to the aquarium walls facing up or facing down since the frags will be facing away from the viewer when the ‘rack’ is mounted upside down. Another detractor about the Aqua Rocks coral frag holders is that they are little bit pricier than comparable magnetic structures but we hope that this is a function of using reliably sealed magnets that won’t rust as easily as some cheaper versions can.
One thing we can say about our ‘fancy’ natural shaped frag structures is that we still regularly use all of them and they look great blending into our existing and established reef scapes, while our grid style frag racks have a tendency of deteriorating due to biofouling, or breaking when we try to remove bits of overgrown corals from them. The Aqua Rocks frag holders start at $20 for a non-magnetic sand bed version and up to $95 for the largest and most elaborate pieces which we wouldn’t be surprised to see some reefers create an entire aquascape using their unique and attractive style. [Aqua Rocks]
