Has anyone thought about doing fragplugs. Seems very straight foreword. 2 parts sand to 1 part Portland type 2 cement. create a sand mold. In 2 days dig them out, then soak them in a toilet, in RO wast water that constantly is refreshed when making water, or a river/creek bed.
I started a small batch a few days ago, and im going to dig them out today…
First batch dug out today. 20 frag disks, all perfect. 39 frag plugs, some not so perfect but it was the first batch. Now the cure… And time to repeat, but more this time…
Overall i am happy… i need to find a way to keep the cement liquid, cause the more i pour the less saturated it is with water and i have to add more water…
John unless you set up a new frag tank how many plugs can you fit in your 10g? If you want to wait more than 3 months and make a couple hundred for the price of 100 you can. How fast can you use 100 plugs though with your current 12 1" SPS frags? Just buy a bag from your LFS and support their store.
In my personal opinion it is not worth the time and effort for a small operation. It would benefit the club if someone were to make them and spread them out, but for time being I’ll be purchasing mine in bulk online.
How much did you spend on materials and tools (not including stuff you had laying around for those of us starting with nothing) and how much time did it take you?
Oh and just for the sake of completeness if you want to give me 10 once they are done curing I could keep some at home in a cup of 0tds RODI water for a week and then test the phosphate using my new Phosphate Photometer. If they release a significant amount of phosphates and someone fills say a 10g qt tank that tank will quickly go from a low to a high maintenance tank and you’ll be bringing people frags covered in algae and cyanobacteria.(growth rates are stunted by high phosphates to, so the time it takes your SPS to attach will be longer.)
[quote=“Gordonious, post:5, topic:2949”]
In my personal opinion it is not worth the time and effort for a small operation. It would benefit the club if someone were to make them and spread them out, but for time being I’ll be purchasing mine in bulk online. [/quote]
Yeah I can go in to Walmart and buy a picture to hang on my wall too - but it’s a heck of a lot more fun to go out and take my own.
Sometimes it’s not the money involved in an endeavor but the joy you get from travelling down that particular road, and being able to say “I did it” when you get to the end.
[quote=“Cdangel0, post:8, topic:2949”]
Yeah I can go in to Walmart and buy a picture to hang on my wall too - but it’s a heck of a lot more fun to go out and take my own.
Sometimes it’s not the money involved in an endeavor but the joy you get from travelling down that particular road, and being able to say “I did it” when you get to the end.[/quote]
+1000
Can agree and completely understand this. That being said I know Al had a PITA time working with cement and had to experiment for a year with different batches of LR and I never saw a finished product I would have been happy with. I also never saw a finished frag plug, but I could have missed this. His rock fell apart and never looked completely natural. I’ve also heard of people creating DIYS items like this that release a significant amount of phosphates for a long period of time. Granted I spent a lot more on my rock and plugs, but I liked the end product better.
If someone were to create nice looking plugs that were strong and they ended up not releasing phophates I might be more prone to trying it myself or if I started using hundreds a month.
Perhaps someone could see if many other clubs have created plugs successfully and use them. If every other club out there is doing this and they work well without phosphates and hold together well, then perhaps someone could help the club out and make a large amount and spread them around. This would be great to encourage frag trading and help the environment and the hobby.
Not trying to be a nae sayer just sharing my opinion. I go through a lot of plugs, discs, and frag rocks every year, and still don’t think it is worth it to create my own.
[quote=“Gordonious, post:10, topic:2949”]
Granted I spent a lot more on my rock and plugs, but I liked the end product better.
If someone were to create nice looking plugs that were strong and they ended up not releasing phophates I might be more prone to trying it myself[/quote]
What do you think you’re buying online? You don’t really believe these things are being made in a factory in Hong Kong do you? They’re being made in the back of some fish store or in some guys basement. The only difference is he’s making 1K at a time and has a fancy logo on his bag.
If you get your confidence from paying for something I’d be happy to charge you for some frag plugs I made in my toilet ;D
I believe it all comes down to whether it’s for business or pleasure? I, my self like many other hobbyist, do DIYs for pleasure as states by Cdangel0. And if I was to gointo it for business then I would buy it in bulk, just to save time and have a mass frag plugs for the frag tanks. :TWOCENTS
Perhaps it’s just OCD as well. Perhaps it’s too much for most hobbyist to spend an extra $3-4 a year for something that looks good, doesn’t fall to pieces, doesn’t leach phosphates, and doesn’t take any time or space to make. The person who started this thread was just getting rid of his softies, only has 1" sps frags currently(no colonies to frag off of), and has a 10g frag tank. Seriously how much pleasure do you get out of making a rock? lol. I could see Craig in a cave man costume for Halloween walking around with his frag plugs saying, “I made rock”. Lol. This hobby takes enough time as is and there are other much more enjoyable places to use my time.
I could see the benefit in DIYS live rock being able to create shapes and sizes perfect for you tank which may be impossible to match with imported LR, but not many people have ever done it well and many people have tried. This discussion was about frag plugs to begin with and that’s what I say the time and effort just isn’t worth it to save practically 0 $ for an in superior product.
To each there own.
Oh and Craig I realize most frag plugs and what not sold online aren’t made in a factory in extremely massive scale, but all of the ones I buy are made on enough scale that the products have been tested out hundreds of times without causing major issues. They are also rock solid, don’t leach phosphates, and look good.
[quote=“Gordonious, post:14, topic:2949”]
Oh and Craig I realize most frag plugs and what not sold online aren’t made in a factory in extremely massive scale, but all of the ones I buy are made on enough scale that the products have been tested out hundreds of times without causing major issues. They are also rock solid, donÂ’t leach phosphates, and look good. [/quote]
And how did they get to that point? Practice. They had a lot that loked like crap. A lot that fell apart. They tested and retested and tried different recipes. Where would the hobby be if it weren’t for a few people trying to make their own? We’d be using plastic plugs made in Taiwan or we’d be using the plastic ends off of the flowers we gave mom on Sunday.
DIY frag plugs aren’t for you - fine - but why would you want to discourage someone else who is finding entertainment, educaiton, experience, and fun in doing it?
Is it cost beneficial to make 10 at a time? Probably not. Does the OP care? Also probably not. Why does it matter how big of a frag tank someone has? Are my frag plugs less desireable because I use a hang on frag rack inside my fuge instead of a 40 breeder? Should I spend more money on mine because I only just started fragging SPS?
Let’s remember that we don’t ever want to discourage curiosity - we can offer suggestions and opinions but let’s make sure we don’t cross the line in to condemnation.
r u kidding me? Really? why wouldnt you make your own? you can make them to your exact needs. It would probably be fun making them and at the end of they day you can kick back and say " i made that".
apperently you discourage john making these plugs. Lets see how they come out first. i would be interested in some if they come out well.
take some picture. i would love to see how this works out for you.
Thank you craig i agree 100%.
“And how did they get to that point? Practice. They had a lot that looked like crap. A lot that fell apart. They tested and retested and tried different recipes.” Is it really worth it for John to do this to make the 20-30 plugs he uses a year? My point was that in my opinion there was no $ savings and he is still likely to end up with an in superior product. Doesn’t mean that having fun doing this is condemned or a horrible practice or stupid. It could be a fun learning experience. It allows someone more customization. I’ve watched many others fail and choose to save my time and $. I still think there is value in me chiming in with my opinion when I know others will who have a lot more time and $ on their hands then Marchingband and I have.
Some people on this forum will spend over an hour picking through there chaeto to remove every pod and star fish and return them to their tank before taking it into the LFS. Some people on this forum think nothing of feeding their 10gallon tanks 20 times a day and doing 3-4 water changes a week. Some people are cheap enough that they will try to fix a dirt cheap synthetic salt mix. Many of us realize the short comings in DIYS fixes and want more for our animals. Many of us young people have better stuff to do with our time. Recently I made a comment on recharging phosphate media saying personally I thought it wasn’t worth the time and effort and that was all I was doing here.
"Why does it matter how big of a frag tank someone has? "
If you have a 10 gallon frag tank and use 20 plugs a year looking at the savings from making your own plugs it becomes obvious to me it isn’t as worth looking into as a person who has two 200g frag tanks and uses hundreds of plugs a month. That was my only point in mentioning John’s frag tank size. It wasn’t to put him down or say his frags were any less valuable. If $60 dollars either makes you 6,000 plugs or buys you 300 premade plugs the savings becomes a mute point if you only use 20 a year. It actually is more expensive in that case to invest in making a large quantity as you can purchase 25 plugs for around $6.
“we can offer suggestions and opinions but let’s make sure we don’t cross the line in to condemnation.”
Every post I made stated my opinion on the topic. Try a search on this page to see how many times, “opinion” comes up.
Perhaps my opinions would be met with fewer objections, even when stated as opinions in the post, if they were followed by as long and as obtrusive signature as Craig’s. 
I never told John not to make the plugs and wish people wouldn’t twist my words as such. I stated my opinion. For me I prefer to have a higher quality product right away without all the time, work, and cost. That is my personal preference and opinion on the topic and do not see the harm in adding it. Many new hobbyist read this and I feel when they aren’t doing frequent enough water changes, don’t know anything about the animals they are putting in a glass tank, should be testing more, and all the other things that they should at least be made aware that this may be a more expensive and much more time consuming way to go about things resulting in a poorer product and may not be the way to go about obtaining the 5 plugs they may use before they leave the hobby.
Good lord Jon, maybe its the 3 post posts combined with the 12 paragraph single post posts that you keep making! Do you not have arthritis yet? I’m just poking fun at you.
This post is in the DIY section, which most folks get some joy out of simply DIYing it, learn something new in the process and perhaps can get by with something cheaper. The old argument of how much your time and DIY equipment costs versus buying a new pre-built product is a good one, but what is most often overlooked is the overall knowledge and experience gained - priceless. I hate seeing any type of nay-saying especially in a DIY section. Just my opinion.