What is a frag?

[CassieLEO]

So im lurking trying to follow because I will eventually be setting up a Marine tank. PLEASE dont mind my very rookie questions...

What is a Frag? Is it a chunk of coral that is put onto something to grow some more?

What do you have to do if you want to put a "frag" into your tank?

Are all the corals and soft corals living organisms? Like, they live and die and reporduce? Im having a hard time putting my mind around all this...Are things like anenomes a fish?

Im sad to say, but ive never paid attention to the fine details of a Marine Tank before, so I know NOTHING about them...

Thanks!!! -Cassie

[skullduggery1]

I believe a FRAG is a cut piece of coral that is used in propagation.Anenomes are tunicates.

[Rue]

All corals are invertebrate organisms. They just have different lifestyles. Some corals make a calcium external 'skeleton'...and each live colony house many individuals. An anemone isn't biologically all that different...it's just free living and less likely be colonial. Although some anemones like to hang out near others of their species.

Other corals will have calcium bits scattered within their soft tissues.

Corals/anemones are not like fish (vertebrates). We are like fish...they are more like insects.

'Frag' is short for fragment. If you take a fragment of a larger coral colony - it will keep growing on it's own (provided you've taken at least one complete organism - and sometimes you need more than one for better propagation).

[CassieLEO]

Ahhhhh ok, that makes sense!!!! Thanks!!!

[Brhino]

how can you tell where one organism starts and the next ends within the coral?

[CassieLEO]

Yeah, I would worry a lot because it seems like all the stuff is expensive and knowing my luck id try and frag and kill the whole thing...

[Cliff]

how can you tell where one organism starts and the next ends within the coral?

I’ll try to answer that as best as I can

For hard corals, they will all be connected together. Like branches of the same tree. Within the branches it is all connected like one living organism.

http://i938.photobucket.com/albums/ad226/Cliff_Erhardt/Cliff%20fish%20tank%20pics/NewSPS.jpg

For soft corals, the living parts will be connected by a soft tissue. Leather corals and mushrooms are all good examples of these

http://i938.photobucket.com/albums/ad226/Cliff_Erhardt/Cliff%20fish%20tank%20pics/Fingerleather.jpg


The confusion will come when you have a soft coral that grows on a hard skeleton. Candy corals for example have a soft outer shell on top of a hard skeleton. They are not internally connected through the hard skeleton. As they grow, they just keep splitting and building/growing off of there hard skeleton base.

http://www.nano-reef.com/corals/images/candycanecoral1.jpg

http://www.fragoutpost.com/images/fragging_tutorials/caulastrea/caulastrea1.jpg

This is a very simplified answere, I hope it actually helps

[Cliff]

Yeah, I would worry a lot because it seems like all the stuff is expensive and knowing my luck id try and frag and kill the whole thing...

There some corals are a lot easier than others. Mushrooms and leathers for example are said to be very good beginner corals

[waqar44]

Hello guys.....!
Thanks for sharing information.In my opinion Frag is to cut a peice of the coral and attach to a new plug if you will and the coral will grow to hopefully become a new colonie to be able to frag someday...!

[ILuvMyGoldBarb]

The confusion will come when you have a soft coral that grows on a hard skeleton. Candy corals for example have a soft outer shell on top of a hard skeleton. They are not internally connected through the hard skeleton. As they grow, they just keep splitting and building/growing off of there hard skeleton base.


There's no confusion there at all. LPS corals like Candy Canes (aka Trumpets) are actually a stony coral, not a soft coral. The reality is that science does not differentiate between Short Polyp Stony and Long Polyp Stony, they are all just stony corals.

Here, this article may help clear up some questions.
http://www.aquaticcommunity.com/corals/Stony-corals.php

[Cliff]

Yup, your 110% correct goldbarb

Just trying to speck to some of the initial confusion that could come from just appearances only. Perhaps candy cane corals were not the best example to use, certain brian corals might have been a better example to use. Only trying to answerer the question of were one begins and another end

Thanks for the clarification

[MCHRKiller]

Other "corals" such as zoanthids and palythoa just continue to grow soft encrusing matter on a rock until they form a colony. The individual polyps themselves are not dependent on each other you can start an entire colony from 1 polyp in due time. Zoanthids and Palythoas are probably the easiest of coral to keep as they dont require that much lighting and can make due with less than perfect conditions. They are also some of the most colorful critters you can put in your reef.

For example this is a zoa frag:
http://i933.photobucket.com/albums/ad180/MCHRKiller/DSC_0399.jpg
this is the same frag which has grown into a colony:
http://i933.photobucket.com/albums/ad180/MCHRKiller/DSC_0253-1.jpg

[ILuvMyGoldBarb]

np Cliff, now if we want some real confusion, we could talk about how Mushrooms are not technically corals. LOL

[dawrtw]

Just to add another thought about frags. In my area several of us will share frags from each of our tanks. This increases the number and types of corals on each of our reefs.

I keep green star polyps, when they spread I frag them to sell or trade. My 75 gal reef has paid for its self several times over. Not all my corals spread as fast but when they do, I benefit. Sometimes its as easy as setting a small rock down near a coral and watch it spread to the rock. I then put the frag on our local forum or Craigs List.

Most of the time if I prune back my fresh water plants I just throw them away. Not with the saltwater stuff.

My reef is the only tank paying dividens.:fish:

[kaybee]

how can you tell where one organism starts and the next ends within the coral?

Interesting question.

Part of me would say that 'technically' each polyp represents an individual coral animal. The polyp could be large and solitary (such as a trachyphyllia/open brain coral), or colonial (each polyp on an SPS coral may be considered an individual coral but, collectively, they form a single structure as their skeletons (and tissue, for that matter) are interconnected an inseparable until (intentionally or unintentionally fragmented ('fragged')), such as with this stylophora (superficially a single piece of coral but actually comprised of hundreds of individual yet interlinked/interconnected polyps):
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a259/y2kenny19/Saltwater/14jun08stylo2.jpg.

Other stony corals may be of the branching (or phaceloid) variety in which, while colonial, the coral tissue is not interconnected, although the skeletal structure is shared (such as Cliff's candy cane coral). With those types of corals each polyp (or 'head') is an individual animal.

On the other hand, some soft corals, however seem to be different. For example a single stalk of xenia may have half a dozen to more than a dozen polyps. Would each polyp be considered an individual coral or is each multi-polyped 'stalk' a considered a single coral? Same with toadstool leathers. A single stalk yet a multitude of polyps. Is each polyp an individual (albeit colonially fused) coral animal or are they parts of a single coral?

Going back to stony corals, this platygyra/maze brain coral has a multitude of tiny mouths. Single solitary coral or a colonial coral? With its meandroid structure, individual coral polyps seemingly aren't apparent:
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a259/y2kenny19/Saltwater/coral2007.jpg