The Gear List for a Brisbane Frag Swap Ready Coral Tank

The Brisbane frag swap calendar fills up fast, and if you have ever turned up with three sad looking nubs while everyone else is unloading trays of colour, you know the difference is preparation. Getting frags swap ready is not about luck. It is about a tank set up specifically to grow fast, propagate cleanly, and keep new arrivals healthy until they hit someone else's tank. Here is the gear that actually moves the needle.

The scenario: you have a mixed reef with a few nice acro and montipora colonies growing out nicely, but every time you cut frags they sit loose on the sand, glue goes everywhere, and you are not confident the growth rate will get you enough pieces before the next swap date. You also want to bring home new frags from the swap without risking an outbreak in your main tank.

The Build

• Cutting tools: a disposable razor blade with plastic handle ($2 AUD) for clean, quick frag cuts on soft corals and zoas without crushing tissue.
• Mounting surfaces: a mix of ceramic frag tiles, small round with stem ($15 AUD for 20) for SPS chips, plus square frag tiles with stem ($18 AUD) for larger montipora plates. The stem base lets you slot straight into a frag rack without extra plugs.
• Odd shaped pieces: natural rock shape ceramic tiles ($10 AUD) for branching acro frags that need a bit more surface to grip.
• Glue: browse the glue range for a gel cyanoacrylate that sets underwater in seconds. This is what actually holds your frag to the tile long enough to callous over, so do not skip it or try to make aquarium sealant do the job.
• Ricordea and morph handling: the Ricordea hospital ($1 AUD) plus a large round flat ceramic tile that suits the morph hospital ($1 AUD) gives you a proper holding setup for softies and mushrooms that need a calmer flow zone to heal before trade day.
• Quarantine and dipping: every frag coming into the house, whether bought or swapped, goes through a CoralRx One Shot dip ($5 AUD) before it touches your display. This is non negotiable if you want to avoid flatworms, red bugs or nudibranchs hitching a ride home from the swap.
• Lighting for polyp extension: a Kessil A360X mounted over the frag rack pushes intensity without the shadowing you get from a full canopy fixture. Set it slightly bluer and a touch stronger than your display lighting and you will see faster colouring and better polyp extension on SPS frags within a couple of weeks.
• Growth dosing: a two part or amino based dosing routine from Coral Essentials, including AcroPower style amino dosing, keeps calcium, alkalinity and the trace elements corals actually use for tissue growth in range. Dial this in with regular test kit checks rather than guessing.
• Target feeding: a Aqua One coral feeder with extension tube ($22 AUD) lets you deliver food straight to LPS and softies without blasting it across the tank, which helps fatten up colonies before they get cut down for trade.

Before and After

Before: a couple of loose frags wedged into rockwork, no dedicated dip routine, growth that is fine but not fast, and a lighting setup borrowed from the display tank that is either too weak over the rack or shading half the frags.

After: a dedicated frag rack with tiles matched to coral shape, a Kessil A360X angled for even coverage, a consistent AcroPower style dosing schedule, and a quarantine step for every new arrival. Colonies colour up faster, cuts heal cleanly on the tile instead of falling into the sand, and you walk into the swap with trays that actually look worth trading for.

A Few Practical Notes

• Cut frags a good two to three weeks before the swap date, not the night before. Fresh cuts need time to callous and show colour.
• Keep a small dedicated frag rack away from strong flow so glue sets properly and new cuts are not tumbled around.
• Check alkalinity and calcium weekly while dosing for growth. Fast growth pulls through minerals quickly and swings are the main reason frags stall right before an event.
• Free shipping applies on orders over $150 AUD, so it is worth bundling tiles, glue and dip together in one order if you are stocking up before a swap.

Prices mentioned in this article are accurate at the time of publishing and are subject to change. Please check the relevant product page on our site for the current price before purchasing.