Mounting coral frags

[Guest beatle]

This is probably second nature to a lot of you, but when I have frags of something (torch, frogspawn, purple monti) I just find a secure place to stick them between some rocks and let them go. I recently picked up a beautiful pink tipped frogspawn from steveoutlaw this weekend and he has the bottom skeleton mounted to a chunk of LR. My torch and yellow tipped frogspawn are just sitting in the rocks. They're both healthy, but I'm wondering if I'm restricting their growth by keeping their bases down in the rocks as opposed to having them glued to the rock.

[Grav]

Matt,

 

As long as they are not in danger of falling, what you have done is fine... perhaps even better than mounting into a rock.

 

IF later on you change something in the tank: add more light, another powerhead, move the rocks around it will be easy to re-locate the coral if they were not glued in.

 

For LPSs such as hammer and frogspawn IF I NEED TO, I like to place the base into a spot where it will sit on it's own and then mush in a small amount of 2-part epoxy to just hold it in place. This prevents the coral from wiggling out and falling face down in the sand, uses less epoxy and is less visable.

 

Good luck

[Guest beatle]

Yes, they're not going anywhere. I've moved my frogspawn several times to get it in flow that it likes and to accomodate other corals.

[Grav]

Just re-read your 1st post.

 

With an SPS like the Monti:

1. Don't use the epoxy, the heat that curing epoxy creates will kill any tissue it is touching.

2. IMHO you shoule mount the SPSs to some small to mid-size rock so that it is able to encrust faster. Gel super glue or "cloral glue" from a LFS works best for me.

[emissary]

With LPS corals that have branches (esp euphilia) I usually just jam it into rocks or the sandbed. SPS I superglue typically.

[Almon]

I have found that if I don't glue the coral to something, it will get moved or toppled by the fish and inverts. The corals that I don't glue down securely will grow slowly or not at all. When they are secured, they grow well. My preference is to attach the coral to a small rock, large enough to be secure, but small enough to move it if you need.

 

I also received a frogspawn from SteveOutlaw this weekend just as you described, attached to a small fist size rock. I like it....a lot. Much better than just finding a crevice to jam it in and waiting to find it on the bottom of the reef or tipped upside down.

Edited March 20, 2007 by Almon

[flowerseller]

You might want to consider mounting SPS on it's side (Color side up) as opposed to sticking them straight up.

I've tried doing it this way for 10+ years and feel it forms nicer frag colonies in a shorter amount of time.

Having a somewhat higher ALK and not fixating so much on the CA # may improve your success as well. Anything + or - 30pts of 400 is what I shoot for in conjuction with the higher ALK.

 

Just my experience

[rooroo]

Even the big rocks in my tank get knocked over occassionally. But anything that is not secured in some way gets knocked off within days. I've spend the last few months constantly trying to secure rocks to other rocks and am finally getting things to stay in place with super glue gel and rubber bands.