Propogating and Selling Corals (1 Viewer)

[Clownfish Chris]

I have set up a frag tank next to my display that I want to use to sell a few frags out of. My frag tank is a 20gal long with a 250watt MH/4xT5 fixture plumed directly into my display system. I have no illusions of grandeur that I will grow to a full fledged propagation facility but who knows. The initial purpose is to help supplement the cost of running my large 260 gal system. It would be nice to garner an actual income though that is not the purpose. I am looking into input in how to best go about doing this. Here are my concerns in no particular order:

• How should I go about doing this? I am looking into the possibility of buying colonies, SPS mostly, for the purpose of fragging them, and selling the frags while keeping the mother colony in my display. I have no corals that could be fraged at this point.
• Are there any set up considerations I haven't thought of?
• Stepping on sponsors toes. I like all of the sponsors I have met and want to support them and the trade, not compete against them. In fact I intend to purchase from them first.
• Becoming a sponsor. At what point should I do this?
• I know that the lighting is overkill for the system. At this point it is what I have to work with. If it is to much, I could use a piece of smoked glass to help reduce the par.

Any and all thoughts would be appreciated.

 

[reefling]

you have a 260 main with nothing to frag. you are a bit early on to be getting a frag tank. your best bet is to put a rack in the tank somewhere. Second, forget the 20g. Get a 40g breeder. put the halide high enough and one pendant can cover most of it. use two small korallias and make it a satallite tank. I did that on my old 125, until i needed bigger. Eventually, the display i have now was one of three frag tanks. Do not worry about stepping on sponsor's toes. Supply them. They would rather get frags from a trusted local source than to go to the airport and get styrofoam boxes from the airport or FedEx. I have done what you are looking at doing before. When you have a business is when you become a sponsor. When you are buying select colonies for broodstock to mass produce them, you might be a business. If you think your local jurisdiction would say something if they knew you were selling frags and not charging sales tax, then you are probably a business. The rules I have seen leave it kinda vague, basically a judgement call of the board. If you have any questions, feel free to ask. I only say forget the 20 because when you actually get stuff growing a tank as large as yours, you will quickly realize that you need way more space. The 40 will feel tight by then. do not get in a hurry to frag tho. get your main tank stocked up and let it grow 6 months to a year. Acros and other stony corals should probably grow 1-2 years before fragging anymore than accidents from mag floats and one or two branches snapped off here and there. Stony coral growth is exponential. about 25% of what i used to sell or trade was stony, the rest was zoa type stuff.

Best advice I can give you is to not be the guy that frags your frags consistantly.

 

[Tangs]

Now that I am retired I think it is a fun hobby to have. Buy a coral or frag and sell frags from it. It is a bit time consuming but fun and a challenge to get them to grow and sell.