Possible Frag disc replacement no algae growth!

[aharrow]

I didn't want to highjack Who Dah's thread on frag plugs and phosphate leaching, which I completely believe is happening in my tank and it seems that many others are experiencing the same problem including him.

I have been experimenting with buying different brands of frag plugs due to algae growth on them but nowhere else. I have some residual bryopsis in my overflows as I can't possibly get down in there to eradicate it. I do not have bryopsis anywhere else in my display tank.

So This all started when I received some frags from a few different reefers that I knew had some algae/ bryopsis on some of their plugs. Even though they were scraped clean it came back in my tank after purchasing them. I even popped off the frag and remounted them on fresh plugs only to have the algae or bryopsis return. So I started researching and trying different brand of ceramic plugs. I have tried four different brands and they all seem to encourage algae growth. I don't have it growing anywhere else.

Just a quick note, I run an ULNS and my phosphates tested 0 on a hanna. I run RowaPhos on my make up water before I even mix the salt as I know our county water has high phosphates.

So anyway, I decided to put a 8" x 8" piece of tumbled marble in the frag tank. After soaking it in RO/DI water to make sure the haze and dust was off of it, I placed it in the tank . It is stark white so any algae growth will show up nice.

After three weeks, the entire piece of tumbled marble is still stark white. There is some spots of coralline growth. I have tested my water to watch the phosphate, nitrates, etc just in case it leached some and no changes so far.

So I think that this is going to be an excellent substitute for ceramic frag plugs. I have a tile saw and can get 8 1" pieces out of 1 tile. A box of (8) 8" x 8" tiles at Lowe's is around $8. So my box is going to yield 64 1" x 1" frag squares. This to me is much cheaper than the bag of 25 for $5 plus shipping.

Just thought I would share.

 

[chris goetz]

Any worries about what metals might be mixed in with the marble?
I ask because that was a concern I had on using some of the natural stone tiles(12 x 12=144 1" discs) as frag discs before.

 

[aharrow]

good question, I didn't think that would be an issue and besides I can't test for them anyway. I will research the composition of tumbled marble stone.

 

[Alpha Aquaculture]

Why not just use acrylic. Seems marble might get expensive and would still be slightly porous even if its tumbled. If algae grows on acrylic its wiped off easily with just a thumb... I wouldn't want to have to scrape algae off marble.

just my .02

good thread, keep the ideas flowing!

 

[aharrow]

That's a good point alpha corals, I think the question is how well would they glue to the acrylic? I am sure superglue sticks to everything but I wonder how well it would do. I don't have any spare acrylic sitting around to try it.

In regards to the scraping of algae off of the tumbled marble, it is a very smooth surface so not a big deal. I can do it with my thumb nail and i Think the adhesive capabilities would be better than acrylic. The cost comes out to about 12.5 cents each. The frag plugs I just bought were 25 for $5 so 20 cents each but you have to factor in shipping as well. Plus I can go to home depot or lowes at any time if I run out. Frag plugs I have to order and pay shipping.

Anyone know how much acrylic costs for a sheet? I would guess that you could get a large amount of plugs out of a piece of acrylic so the per unit cost might get down in single digits. Definately worth the trouble to spend an couple hours cutting down a 8 foot sheet of acrylic into 1" squares. You would get an enormous amount of plugs.

 

[chris goetz]

I think acrylic might be too light for discs. The time spent gluing acrylic rod to the bottom of each piece to make plugs would probably eat up any potential $avings.

I know the acylic plugs I got with my magnetic frag rack are super light and would blow around in my tank if not plugged into a rack.

 

[lReef lKeeper]

personally ... i like the frag disks i have been getting from frank (twinspots_goby) on my buys from him, but i have always used the good old fashioned live rock rubble. if i get a frag with some algae on the plug ... pop it off and glue it to a piece of rubble, and good to go. we all know that we have rubble laying around in the sump !!

Twinspots_goby ... thanks fro the free aptasia on the orange eye mummy eye !! lol, no worries bro.

 

[foxhuntr]

what i do is take a piece of live rock to my inland band saw and cut it into about 1/4" slices and use them for frag plugs..... they seem to work very well and look natural...