How to Frag Corals

A simple guide to coral propagation and coral fragging for the marine reef aquarium

What does your ideal coral aquarium look like? Do you want a mixed coral reef tank, buzzing with color and energy as fish and invertebrates fill every level with the colors and textures of a coral reef?

It is a devastating feeling to buy a new coral and watch it shrivel away and die in your tank. Wild-collected corals travel long distances in some challenging living conditions before they make it to your home aquarium, and many of those specimens are damaged and dying before you get them home.

In this book, I will show you how some successful reef aquarium hobbyists are able to fill their tanks with corals that are already proven to grow well in their tanks. These aquarists are also able to trade with other hobbyists to acquire some of the corals that are grow best for them, and many are even able to use these secrets to make a little money on the side.

Ok, they aren’t really secrets, but what I am talking about is fragging corals. 

Hi, I’m Albert Ulrich, the author of The New Saltwater Aquarium Guide. I have been published in Aquarium Fish International and Aquariums USA magazines and I have been blogging online about the hobby here since 2009.

I’m passionate about all things fishy, but my favorite part of the hobby is helping people learn from the mistakes I have made. One of my biggest regrets in this hobby is that I waited too long to try fragging corals. I was scared I would kill the corals I was trying to frag. I was afraid of the expense. I was even hesitant to want to take any of the corals out of the water and expose them to the air, let alone slice them up. While buying some of the best gear is a big part of the hobby for many of us, I was so certain my foray into coral fragging was going to end in disaster that I resisted the urge to get any equipment, because I didn’t want to see it sitting around, unused, with the other abandoned hobbies I’ve taken up over the years.

If you have coral in your aquarium, but have not fragging yet, you may be blown away, once you start.

Fragging is actually genetically cloning, which isn’t exactly the same thing as ‘breeding’ corals, but it is close, and it is about a zillion times easier than breeding corals. Corals are genetically programmed to reproduce clones of themselves from just about any surviving piece of itself. Take a second to appreciate how wickedly cool and amazing that is. Could you imagine growing a duplicate version of yourself from a locket of hair or a discarded fingernail? That’s the kind of stuff comic book heroes do, and corals do that every day without a Hollywood budget.

This book will show you how to frag corals for your marine aquarium with step-by-step instructions.