Newbie Coral Questions

[catgirl29]

I thought by asking this here, it might help others. I've searched the forum and can't find a thread on this but feel free to direct me to a link if it exists.

I will be starting to put coral slowly (probably mostly softies) in my tank. I've seen tanks that have a bunch of frags on frag plugs just sitting around on their rocks. I'm assuming that the idea is that the corals will simply grow over the plugs. Here are my questions -

1. Do you leave everything on its plug and hope for quick growover or do you remove the frag from the plug?
2. If you are leaving on the plug, are you gluing the plug to the rocks (if on the rocks)?
3. If you remove from the plug, how? Are you gluing the bare corals down?

I know that a lot of this depends on what the coral is and whether it will adhere quickly on its own. All advice and experience is appreciated.

One other question - when fragging, are you using some kind of glue to make the coral adhere to the
plug? Just curious more than anything.

 

[picoreefguy]

IMO all three of these questions depend on the coral you are putting in the tank. ill do my best to answer them.

1. if its softies or an encrusting sps i usually just leave it on the plug and wait for it to spread. if its an encrusting lps then it depends on how quickly it grows. if its a slow grower than ill pull it off the plug and glue it directly to the rocks. if its a branching sps then ill probably pop it off the plug as well and glue it down to the rocks.

2. if i leave it on the plug and its a softy ill go ahead and glue it down where i want it (softies are generally the most hardy corals and therefore can withstand not being light acclimated, but that dosent mean its not a good idea to do so). if its an lps or sps ill wait to glue it down until i have light acclimated it to the spot i want it and then glue it down. if its something i plan on fraging i leave it unglued so i can pull it out and frag it easier later on down the road.

3.if i plan on removing from the plug i usually just use a band saw to cut them off of the plug. but if its a thick lps coral that has lots of skeleton underneath that is visible then you can usually just pry it off with your thumb or a flathead screwdriver.

keep in mind these are just my experiences. YMMV. good luck!

 

[catgirl29]

Thank you! What glue are you using? I keep thinking since these are live animals that there must be some special surgical glue or something.

 

[picoreefguy]

i just use whatever glue i have laying around. extra thick super glue works best. bulk reef supply has the best one that i have used. ive tried seachem, saltcritters, ecotech, bulkreefsuply, loctite and even dollar store brand super glue but the brs glue was the best out of all of them.

 

[picoreefguy]

oh and i forgot to answer the second half of your last question. if you pull the coral off the plug then yes you glue directly to the coral. but if its a softy then you may have to let them attach by themselves because most softies dont take kindly to gluing and will just let go and float somewhere else. if you insist on gluing them then the easiest way to do it would be to get a little deli cup and fill it with small bits of rock rubble and sit the coral down in it and let it attach to one a couple of those. once its done that then you can glue the rocks they're attached to to whatever you want.

 

[bkostuch]

Make sure the glue contains cyanoacrylate , you can get the gel at dollar stores for super cheap and it works well.

 

[mikesmith34]

I have found the epoxy puddy and super glue gel combo work best, I've had super glue only attachments come loose. The combo has never let go. Dab of glue, epoxy, another dab of glue then press in place. Like others have said dollar store super glue GEL works great.