frag plug question.

[tosiek]

Was wondering why people don't use/manufacture more rocklike plugs for frags? just a discussion why out of curiosity, going through some design/marketing courses and my mind threw this into my track of thought and can't get it out.

All i see are the round discs or the disks with a nipple on the bottom, both very geometric. Then people place them ontop of their rockwork, and sometimes it looks a little funny with some placements.

Shouldn't be too hard to design a rocklike or more rock shaped plug/disc that would have all the same features. A nice two part mold or a 1 part mold could do it. Also a little befuddled why the people manufacturing them now aren't using more rocklike plugs/discs now besides the fact that they might sell just as quick now so it doesn't matter and are probably easier to manufacture the molds for them and don't have to waste time thinking of a way to make it work.

Or does it really not matter because coraline covers it up in time and blends it into the rockwork? Would people be interested in this at all?

 

[House of Laughter]

Tony,

I think there are a few elements working here - as I am sure you are studying, every marketing strategy takes into account many factors that affect the success of the product -

in this case, demand, or comsumer behavior is definately one of them and most of which drives the next few -

The comsumer (reefer) wants something that is earth-like, rocklike, resembling thier OWN rockwork as closely as possible - that is a problem because you can't mass produce plugs that are custom to each individual reefer -

So, color and context is a huge factor - Also, shape and size is also a factor

Also material is a factor - has to be cheap enough to make, quick enough to produce and simple enough to do so (not labor intensive).

As you may guess - labor is the number one cost in producing these items and people look to "molds" to make them easiser to mass produce from a material that is reef safe that will blend with thier rock work be relatively light enough to ship, and that there will be enough product at the price point that the discerning reefer will buy at.

I jumbled a few textbook ideas around in there, but you get the basic idea:

1) Reefers are particular to thier tank
2) Shape and size play a huge factor in both sale-ability ,ship-ability and price point to market
3) material affects the price point, shipping and texture in tank

Here is why I thik it's not done more regularly:

Labor is the highest cost - in order to increase margin you systemize the production - as soon as you systemize you can't customize which is what the consumer wants - as soon as you try and customize, the price of labor and materials increases and the margin decreases.

REMEDY:

What I think will work better is if someone came up with a series of molds - lets say they look like an ice cube tray and have a dozen different shaped and sized plugs - and then made like 5 templates like that - then there are 60 unique plug types - once that is accmplished, you can mass produce at a lower margin and price it to the market better.

Key factor - people making these are doing it from thier basements and can't afford the research and development costs to make the 5 molds before they start selling the plugs. once someone does that - IMO - the pugs will look nicer, have more diversity and better sell-ability.

JMO armchair maketing philosophy!

House

 

[herman]

Check out the reef ceramics plugs as well as the other reef ceramics items for sale. The only thing is that they are not cheap. Each reef plug is different and once covered in coraline they are indistiguishable from the live rock. Calireef just brought 50 over from Macna. Each one is different in size and shape. Each has a hole that you fill with glue and you simply stick the frag in. This also encourages encrusting.

I just transfered most of my frags and colonies onto these disks. One nice thing is that I was able to add them all at once without any ill effects that you would get from adding cement plugs/rocks. Also I am able to remove any coral if I need very easily.

The manufacturing process on these things is quite hefty and that is the reason why you dont have too many people making these things.

You can check out all the shapes and sizes from one of our sponsors:
http://www.aquariumspecialty.com/catalog/

 

[aaron23]

wow very cool reef plugs

 

[Chiefmcfuz]

I go to the LFS and buy base rock rubble and use that, I think it looks more natural and it's cheap. If they don't have rubble I look for something like Herm showed you.

 

[cali_reef]

Was wondering why people don't use/manufacture more rocklike plugs for frags? just a discussion why out of curiosity, going through some design/marketing courses and my mind threw this into my track of thought and can't get it out.

All i see are the round discs or the disks with a nipple on the bottom, both very geometric. Then people place them ontop of their rockwork, and sometimes it looks a little funny with some placements.

Shouldn't be too hard to design a rocklike or more rock shaped plug/disc that would have all the same features. A nice two part mold or a 1 part mold could do it. Also a little befuddled why the people manufacturing them now aren't using more rocklike plugs/discs now besides the fact that they might sell just as quick now so it doesn't matter and are probably easier to manufacture the molds for them and don't have to waste time thinking of a way to make it work.

Or does it really not matter because coraline covers it up in time and blends it into the rockwork? Would people be interested in this at all?

To answer your question, yes, people do use manufactured plugs for corals, ALL aquacultured\maricultured corals from Bali, south indo, Fiji, and Tonga comes on cement plugs. Walt Smith attemped to market ocean cured man made plugs few years back and it did not gain much notice, it was kinda expensive at few bucks each due to the air freight from Fiji.

Mass producing nice looking plugs take lots of labor, getting the right mix of material so you don't have to cure it for a long time at home is also costly.. And people rather pay $2-6 dollars a pound for rubble rocks than $.60 for a nice reef ceramic plug Herman posted.

Using these larger plug in a smaller reef or an established reef is also a bit difficult. They are large and hard to get them to stay in your existing rock work due the the typical flat bottoms on them, and as the coral grow the entire thing becomes unstable because the heavier weight on the top (thats if you manage not killing the coral and let them grow out to colonies).