Are you growing anything out for the next frag swap?

[Thales]

I know that I’ve been mainly just complaining here, so I’ll offer up some potential precautions/solutions

First off, I think its great how much the club emphasizes dipping coral, and will handing out KCL last swap was awesome. I think this is a great baseline in general.

I think MEN specifically should be discussed at future swaps. If any other pests start becoming a common problem, we should start mentioning those too. Having pictures, or having live specimens to view in person can help as well.

Technically these pests roam and can be anywhere in our tanks, but I think effort will be most efficient and best used focusing on the targeted species, montis/anacropora/porites. People that want to bring these to the swap should check their frags daily for one week before the swap. Check 1 hour after lights out, one hour before lights on, etc.

We should reach out to professionals to see if they have any more input/suggestions. Maybe @Thales can have some good information?

This is just what I came up with off the top of my head, I will add more if I come up with more ideas

I think it is mostly up to the individual to insepct and act on any corals they want to bring to their tanks because even with people caring, pests can slip through.

For id and stuff, Marc Levenson gave a good talk about pests in December at the Boston Reefkeepers Society (don't watch my talk because I'll be giving it to BAR on jan 11 haha)

 

[DaddyHook]

Just curious with the hundreds of frags at frag swaps have any of the people checking in frags ever denied one frag due to not looking good or observed pests since its rather a quick process. I agree its not anyone task nor responsibility screening frags for pests and mainly honor system but every single frag swap the message is clearly passed loudly
“When I dip, you dip, we dip
You put your hand upon my frag
When you dip, I dip, we dip”

Yes I’m sure @B the Nano Reefer remembers it. At the last open swaps one guy brought 2 pest corals and a dead skeleton. We threw away the dead and put the pest on the free table. Then had him buy a pack from cali kid.

 

[Invictus]

Just curious with the hundreds of frags at frag swaps have any of the people checking in frags ever denied one frag due to not looking good or observed pests since its rather a quick process. I agree its not anyone task nor responsibility screening frags for pests and mainly honor system but every single frag swap the message is clearly passed loudly
“When I dip, you dip, we dip
You put your hand upon my frag
When you dip, I dip, we dip”

This is a point of emphasis we will be working on for the next frag swap; taking our time a bit more slowly at coral check-in, visually checking corals and doing our best to turn away frags which we deem to be unhealthy or have pests.

As we all know, a quick visual inspection under white lights is going to be insufficient, but we’ll work to catch the obvious issues before they reach the tables.

 

[Srt4eric]

We are having a fragging workshop next month before our February members swap. We can talk about and try to educate about pests.

 

[B the Nano Reefer]

Just curious with the hundreds of frags at frag swaps have any of the people checking in frags ever denied one frag due to not looking good or observed pests since its rather a quick process. I agree its not anyone task nor responsibility screening frags for pests and mainly honor system but every single frag swap the message is clearly passed loudly
“When I dip, you dip, we dip
You put your hand upon my frag
When you dip, I dip, we dip”

At every swap there are at least a handful of frags that don’t make it to the swap table. The person who brought the frag is typically given credit for the frag (other than that one case in the open swap that @DaddyHook mentioned where all 3 frags presented just didn’t meet the mark and we knew CaliKid had frag packs available so the individual would still have the opportunity to participate), but the frag (behind the scene is either disposed of or moved to the freebie table) because it is not healthy enough to make it to the table, is on the banned list or is visibly covered with pests (e.g. aptasia). I think we need to find a balance between enforcement to ensure the quality of corals at swaps with not offending people or dissuading them from participating in swaps.

I think the collective goal should be to reduce the number of frags not making it to the swap tables to 0, be very transparent about pests (and if you know a particular pest is not one that is easily managed or can wreak havoc on corals just not bringing it) and to overall improve the quality of frags being brought (sometimes I have checked in frags where I couldn’t tell if there was even a coral in the specimen cup because it was so tiny it would take a microscope to identify the frag)

 

[richiev]

In the interests of unhijacking this thread, @Fish Boss do you have any interest in starting a doc with pest guidelines for the swap? Maybe a thread + an editable Google doc that guidance could be dropped in?

Stuff like assume everything you get here is infected with pests, because it likely is given things are being swapped the way they are. A list of pests in a tank that make your frags ineligible, maybe a list of red flag warning pests where people should note them (could we get stickers?), a version someone could look at during frag check in where they can be asked to use a sticker, ...

I can help with text (I'd ChatGPT it), but because of these issues I don't really do the swaps anymore so I wouldn't sign up to own fully doing it.

 

[Fish Boss]

In the interests of unhijacking this thread, @Fish Boss do you have any interest in starting a doc with pest guidelines for the swap? Maybe a thread + an editable Google doc that guidance could be dropped in?

Stuff like assume everything you get here is infected with pests, because it likely is given things are being swapped the way they are. A list of pests in a tank that make your frags ineligible, maybe a list of red flag warning pests where people should note them (could we get stickers?), a version someone could look at during frag check in where they can be asked to use a sticker, ...

I can help with text (I'd ChatGPT it), but because of these issues I don't really do the swaps anymore so I wouldn't sign up to own fully doing it.

I like this idea, but I dont think its up to me to dictate the guidelines