This hobby has seen a lot of changes over the last forty years. Lighting, ICP testing, trace elements and flow to name a few items have all been improved upon and have helped change the hobby completely. However, even more than those, the switch from large wild coral colonies to tanks filled with small coral frags has been even more significant.
While it is still possible to get some wild colonies from Australia or maricultured “colonies” from Indonesia or the Solomon Islands, filling tanks with aquacultured frags has become more the norm than the exception, especially when it comes to sps corals. Part of this is out of necessity, as many countries closed at one time or another to the exporting of wild corals so fragging corals became the only way possible to even get some of these corals. Another reason is that some of these corals are rarely imported, so fragging them became the only way to distribute them. And lastly, selling coral frags has become a lucrative business, and as with most things if there is a profit in something it will attract more and more individuals to it.
Over the past twenty or so years I have gotten coral frags from well over 100 vendors. Acquisitions have come from what could be considered large-scale coral farmers as well as garage-based or even tank-based sellers. I have also gotten coral frags from shows, frag swaps, club meetings, and trading or banking corals with others. As a result, I consider myself somewhat of an expert on what has now become the business of coral frags.
What is interesting, is that up until 2000 or so, whenever I or other speakers would give a talk somewhere and afterward, we would often visit the member’s tanks and invariably they would give us frags to take home and often we would bring frags with us as well to share. This was before LED lights or digital photography or the internet. Yes, I know to some, the Dark Ages, but this is how information and corals were shared throughout the hobby.
Granted most of the corals were brown or beige then and to most there was little difference between a brown A. elseyi and A. selago, and the fun was in sharing and just being able to keep these corals, and even better new frags alive. However, once corals suddenly became colorful, and hence more valuable, this practice stopped, as did much of the frag trading and banking that were critical to the success of the hobby in the early years.
Price
Over the past twenty years, and especially during the past decade, the hobby has grown exponentially, and with it so too has grown the demand for corals. Up until the last decade or so most coral frags cost between $10 and $25 and if something was really colorful and unique it might fetch $50. Then with the advent of LED lighting and digital photography along with increased demand and the closure of some countries, the price of coral frags has also skyrocketed. I know that some blame this on the greed of the growers, but having been to numerous coral farms in my opinion it is not greed driving the prices so much as the increased demand, especially for rare and exceptionally colorful corals.
People can spend their money on whatever they choose and the more something is in demand or is limited in quantity the higher the price. This is a fundamental tenet of capitalism. This is why Montipora digitata frags are X price while a rainbow tenuis is X times five or ten in price. These high-priced frags are typically not only more colorful than many other corals, but they also typically grow slower, are less hardy, and are in much higher demand. In talking with a couple of growers on high-end tenuis I have been told that the initial mortality on new colonies usually runs at at least 40% or higher.
Sadly, even for colonies that have been in their system for extended periods there is higher mortality than for most other corals, and even the frags taken from these corals there is a higher mortality. These corals also have a greater tendency to color down unless conditions are perfect and if they do so these corals lose their value. Lastly, despite their price many of these corals also have the highest demand. So, for these reasons, rather than greed, these corals command the highest prices. While I purchased some of these corals from time to time, I no longer feel it is necessary or worthwhile to purchase the most expensive frags. Instead, I now get frags that to me have more value so the corals I now choose while still colorful, grow fast, are hardy and when grown out into large colonies are still impressive when looking at the tank from five feet away.
Having purchased from so many different vendors over the years, I am confident in saying that for the most part, they are all pretty good. Vendors that provide bad service or bad corals typically do not last long in this business. I say that knowing that at least twenty or more vendors that I have dealt with in the past are no longer in business for various reasons. While I consider all of the coral farmers I now deal with to be good, there are some differences between them that I consider important. I will not list my favorite vendors, as that would not be fair, but instead, I will note some of the things that I find important when choosing a frag supplier.
Frag photography
The first thing to be considered is do the corals you receive match the pictures you bought them from. Granted there can be some loss of color during shipping, but over time the coral should match the online picture from which it was purchased. Sadly, some vendors “juice” their pictures by maximizing the blue light or oversaturating the picture. A telltale sign of this is when the hand in the photo is blue, or the white eggcrate is some unique color. If you see this it might be an indicator that the coral is not going to match because as much as I like blue light, my tanks are never under that much long-term.
Along with matching the color, the frag should simply match the picture. Sadly, on several purchases, I have received corals that were not anything like what I thought I purchased. Once it was a mistake and I received the wrong order. But on another order, the vendor was trying to pull a fast one. Before complaining online or charging it back, try to work it out with the vendor.
Next on my good vendor list is how was the frag mounted and has the frag encrusted. If the frag and the plug are fully encrusted it is a sign that the coral has been in captivity for a while and the vendor is not just cutting new pieces and mounting the frags. These encrusted pieces typically do better than just mounted pieces. If the frag is just mounted it still can be a desirable piece, I just always cut these off the plugs to remove any pests and then remount them. If however the frag is not going to be removed from the plug, then the vendor should mount the frag on a plug that can be cut.
This is a pet peeve of mine. On numerous occasions, I have gotten in frags that were fully encrusted on a plug, but it was impossible to cut the stem off of the plug so that the frag could be easily mounted. Since it is understood that most frags on plugs will be mounted, doesn’t it make sense that it should be easy to cut off the stem from the plug? When I come across this problem, I immediately cut the vendor off of my list to buy from. It may be just me, but take this into consideration when you purchase frags or even when you buy plugs to mount your own corals on.
Size
After these considerations, the next thing to be considered is the size of the frags. As with most things, with frags size really does matter and it matters for a couple of reasons. First the larger the frag the greater the chance for survival. Ten years or so ago I did a study that was similar to a study that Dieter Brockman did that looked at survivorship of frags based on the size of the frag. I assessed mine after six months and I believe looked at them over a longer period of time. These analyses were done totally separately, but we both found approximately the same survival rates in the frags.
Frags that were ¼” or less had only a 10% or less rate of survival. ½” or less frags survived approximately 25% of the time. ¾” frags had a survival rate of around 50% and 1” frags survived 75% of the time or better. I did not get into the reasons for the lower survival rate of smaller frags other than that I expected with less tissue and less mass, smaller frags were more susceptible to any stress in the local environment, were more prone to getting knocked over due to it taking them longer to encrust and they were generally just more fragile. These rates may be improved due to the better husbandry that has occurred over the past ten years, but I still prefer to use vendors who whip bigger frags.
Another reason why size is so important is that how long it will take for a frag to grow into a colony needs to be considered. When a frag is only a ¼” or ½” in size this is important in that even if a coral doubles in size in a year, which is good for a tiny frag, in a year the frag will only be ½” to 1” in size. Thus, in two years it will just be a 1” or 2” frag and not until year three or four will it start to resemble a small colony. For this reason as well as survivability size does matter.
Shipping
This gets into the last critical aspect when it comes to frags, shipping. Shipping is still the weakest link in the hobby and is critical when it comes to frags. Since proper shipping is so critical since when done badly it stresses the corals so I always note how good the shipping was. In this regard look at the packaging. The coral should be shipped in an insulated container with heat or cold packs to keep the temperature stable. The frags should be mounted or suspended in some manner so that they are not bouncing about during the trip, and they should be in plenty of water to further reduce stress. The bag should contain a pinch of carbon to reduce any toxins that the coral might produce, and the name of the coral should be printed on the container in waterproof marker.
In addition to all of this, the best vendors also label the conditions that the coral came from including light and flow. They usually also include a description of the parameters of the water that the coral came from as well as acclimation instructions. Lastly, they should have clear and easy instructions on what to do if corals arrive DOA as well as their policy if corals die within the first couple of days. Despite their best efforts, some coral frags will not survive after shipping despite our and the vendor’s best efforts and this needs to be understood by both parties.
Stocking our tanks with coral frags rather than wild or maricultured colonies is part of the modern way of reefkeeping. Because of this, patience and a full understanding of what is required to grow coral from frags into colonies need to be taken into account by the hobbyist. While not filled as fast as in the past, a tank that allows the frags to grow out properly can be just as successful and beautiful as tanks in the past filled with wild colonies.
There are now more vendors selling more coral frags than ever in the hobby and this has undoubtedly helped add more and more hobbyists to our ranks. When I look at the vendors at the various shows with their tanks full of beautifully colored coral frags I can’t help but think that these look more like jewels in a jewel case and that is why coral frags have become the biggest part of coral sales in the hobby.
