NOTE: this is NOT a paid endorsement or advertisement. My excitement is genuine and not paid. I really do think the product is a good one and no one has paid me to say it is.
Many of you remember Bob Bittner the clownfish breeder and creator of Reef Stew. He’s back with something new and pretty amazing. It’s called Frag Gripper. In talking with Bob it became clear to me this product would also do wonders for planted tanks. Bob agreed so there’s a Plant Gripper as well in the works. There is a video below. At the end of the video Bob has bit of a bombshell announcement about his clownfish breeding operation. Read on or feel free to scroll down to the video.
Fragging Corals
The idea is pretty simple. Fragging is something we need to do in the hobby. That’s taking a coral and cutting off a piece of it. That piece is then grown into a larger piece. By doing this we in the hobby are able to share, make a little money if you want, and also to make sure that coral species that might have ecological pressures in the wild still survive in our tanks. Corals that die off in the wild can be replanted using frags from hobbyists. There’s one big problem with fragging though – it’s a pain to mount the frags. Some people glue them, some rubber band them, some even stick them on a spike and some do nothing. All of these methods are pretty terrible.
- Glue doesn’t stick well or just manages to stick to your fingers. Plenty of corals are slimy and of course wet which counteracts the glue.
- Rubber bands will hold the coral but the pressure will kill the flesh. Try putting a rubber band around your finger and see what happens.
- Sticking corals on a spike damages the coral and only works for soft corals.
- By doing nothing I mean sometimes people will stick a frag in a hole in a rock or on the sand. They can get moved, buried, and lost. This too is a terrible method.
Bob has invented something that will hold frags of both hard and soft corals types (almost all) and requires no glue at all and is safe to use in your tank. It uses 3D printed material with a special gripping mechanism that is patent pending.
Planted Tanks
Aside from reef tanks I’ve also kept planted tanks. When Bob first showed me his invention I got really excited and got even more excited when I realized it could be used for plants too. If you have ever done a planted tank you know you usually get some kind of lead weight or just try to use tweezers to get the roots into the substrate. Then fish come along and dig it up! Plant Gripper solves that. Just like you do with a coral frag you put the plant into the gripper. It holds onto the plant and acts as a weight and holds it under the substrate. Bob and I tested it on plants to see if this innovative use of an already innovative product would work and sure enough it easily held the plants in place. For larger, more buoyant plants, the Plant Gripper accepts a frag disk which adds weights. No more plants floating up and no more lead weights.
Video
I interviewed Bob about Frag Gripper and you can watch that video below. Bob actually does a frag to show how easy it is.
NOTE: this is NOT a paid endorsement or advertisement. My excitement is genuine and not paid. I really do think the product is a good one and no one has paid me to say it is.