How to let frag coral encrust over frag plug?

[Gavin Ng]

Hi

I have been fragging corals on a daily basis for commercial sales. However, i found it difficult for the coral frag to encrust the entire frag plug.

I am using a bandsaw, dip in iodine/amino mix, and pretty much most fragged corals survive with excellent health/fleshband. I am curious what am I missing that the coral are not encrusting over the frag plug? (e.g. chalice, lepto, cyphaestrea)

thank you

 

[tbrown]

My Leptos, Pavonas, and Cyphastreas all eventually encrust the entire plug. However, they seem to have a preferred growth direction and move that way first and only slowly encrust in the other direction. My Acro does the same thing as well.

I'm thinking it has something to do with the lighting or flow in my tank as those can both affect growth patterns.

 

[tbrown]

Also, my chalices will do the same thing. One wants to only grow down to the floor, one wants to grow towards the shade behind it, and the third doesn't want to grow at all. The two decent growers have both eventually filled in upwards and forwards, but it took significantly longer for them to grow those directions.