Falling Corals & Placement Question

[dileggi]

Hey everyone. My question is sort of two fold. I can't seem to find an exact answer, which could very well be that there is no exact answer, but I figured I would give it a shot anyway.

Last night, something knocked into my candy cane, which knoced it off it's perch, knocking it into my pearl bubble coral, knocking that into my ricordia rock, and then they all landed very nicely on top of my open brain. I've never been any good domino's....except this time!

Anyway, I figured it was time to get some coral glue to start holding these in place. My concern is, being a newbie, if I place something in a wrong spot, or bad spot, I guess it's there permanantly, unless I move the entire rock it's been stuck to? Or, is it fairly easy to remove it and the coral glue just helps with "light bumping" from fish, snails, crabs etc?

Secondly, since I mentioned placement above....when I purchase something, I like to obviously do me research ahead of time. How aggressive, how much light, how flow etc. I see on the some the sites, that the info is usually listed as moderate light, high light, moderate flow, middle placement, etc.

My question is when sites this information, what is it normally based off of? Meaning, if it says placement is bottom, with moderate lighting and moderate flow. Couldn't that vary from tank to tank? Like the bottom of my tank, with PC lights could be a different light output than someoen with the same size tank, but with MH or T5's instead of PC?

I was wondering if there was a general rule of thumb. I guess I'm just really reluctant to glue my corals down in fear of putting them in a wrong place or something like that and maybe I'm just overthinking this issue too much?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[_E_]

With the lighting and flow question, there will definitely be some variation from tank to tank. I can keep some things growing well on the bottom of my tank with MHs, that my friend has to move mid to top of reef with his PCs. After changing powerheads, I had to change the direction of flow because one coral didn't like the increased flow. I think that the guidelines published are just general references that you should eventually be able to "interpret" for your tank.
When gluing, I would definitely make sure that the coral (and you) liked the spot before using epoxy. I have heard of people using old chewing gum, rubberbands, etc to hold corals in place temporarily...but have never tried these methods to verify their ease.
Eric

[dileggi]

Thanks for the info Eric. I was wondering if the guidelines generally posted were generally geared towards those with MH's and left up to others to interpret using PC's, or if they were just general guidelines and that each tank/owner could obviously experience something different.

I just purchased the epoxy. I never even thought of chewing gum! I've heard of the rubberbands, but they way I'm set up, it would be hard to attach a rubberband to the frag as well as to the rock it's on.

Thank you again.

[Agu]

You may want to look at the Frag of the month articles in ReefKeeping magazine for various ways of attaching corals.

I prefer to mount frags to rubble instead of the large rock. However the rubble is chosen based on the expected size and growth pattern of the mature colony. My tanks are set up with a lot less rock than most people because I anticipate adding rock with frags attached.

[dileggi]

Originally posted by Agu
You may want to look at the Frag of the month articles in ReefKeeping magazine for various ways of attaching corals.

I prefer to mount frags to rubble instead of the large rock. However the rubble is chosen based on the expected size and growth pattern of the mature colony. My tanks are set up with a lot less rock than most people because I anticipate adding rock with frags attached.

Thanks for the input Agu. All the frags I have are already attached to rubble. They were attached when I purchased it. The problem has been being able to get that frag, while on it's rubble base to stay on the live rock. The only one's I don't have a problem with are the one's that I can put direcly on the sand bed.

[jackets22]

Originally posted by dileggi
Thanks for the input Agu. All the frags I have are already attached to rubble. They were attached when I purchased it. The problem has been being able to get that frag, while on it's rubble base to stay on the live rock. The only one's I don't have a problem with are the one's that I can put direcly on the sand bed.

Great topic. I am having the EXACT same problem. I bought the epoxy but afraid to use it as I know as soon as I do I will want to move or adjust the coral and afraid I wont be able to.

[Deb91]

I have seen people talking pictures of their tanks and members that know their corals would help with offering ideas on placement. Just a thought before you glue them!

[dileggi]

Hey Jonm - I'm not sure which glue/epoxy you purchased. The one I bought was called HoldFast by Marineland. It's in a green package.

I have not used it yet, but all I can tell you is what the gentleman at the LFS told me.

He said that the epoxy will hold to keep it in place in case it gets bumped by fish, or any other livestock. But, he said you could snap it off if need be and that it was pretty easy to snap it off, but hard enough again that any livestock won't be able to do it.

I'm going to attempt to use it tonight and see what happens. I'm also afraid that once it's on there, I'll either want or need to move it. But, I'm guessing I'm not doing anything much good now by getting it knocked over! LOL!

[dileggi]

Originally posted by Deb91
I have seen people talking pictures of their tanks and members that know their corals would help with offering ideas on placement. Just a thought before you glue them!

Hi Deb -- that's a great idea, which I never even thought of! I guess the obvious never even occurred to me.

It's worth a try - here's a fairly recent pic, but without the bubble coral in the tank. Also the ricordia rock that is on the bottom right hand corner was moved onto the middle bottom rock of my rock formations as it wasn't doing all that well where it was, so I tried moving it closer to the lights.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

[Deb91]

This site may also help you with deciding placement.

http://www.asira.org/caresheets

[dileggi]

Great site Deb! Thank you so much!

[rustybucket145]

Don't waste your money on 'Coral Glue' Just get Superglue Gel from the Dollar Store or other discount store. Make sure it's Superglue Gel. Then just basically glue the rubble to the rock in your tank. You can use it underwater or out of the water. Some people have trouble getting it to work underwater but it works fine for me, just takes a little practice. If you choose the wrong placement it's easy to 'pop' the rubble off the rock at a later date but will hold solid for years.

Most of all, it's reef safe!

[Deb91]

Glad I could help.

[dileggi]

Originally posted by rustybucket145
Don't waste your money on 'Coral Glue' Just get Superglue Gel from the Dollar Store or other discount store. Make sure it's Superglue Gel. Then just basically glue the rubble to the rock in your tank. You can use it underwater or out of the water. Some people have trouble getting it to work underwater but it works fine for me, just takes a little practice. If you choose the wrong placement it's easy to 'pop' the rubble off the rock at a later date but will hold solid for years.

Most of all, it's reef safe!

Hey Rusty! I already wasted the money I knew about the Superglue Gel to an extent. I knew it could be used to make frags, which is beyond me at this point and I knew it was reef safe. What I didn't know is that you could glue the two pieces of rock together with it. For some reason, I didn't think that would work!

Thank you for the heads up on that one! I can easily return the "coral glue".

[rustybucket145]

By chance does the 'coral glue' say the ingredients are 'Cyanoacrylate Gel'?

[dileggi]

Originally posted by rustybucket145
By chance does the 'coral glue' say the ingredients are 'Cyanoacrylate Gel'?

It says, contains epoxy resins and amine. That's all it says. They really went all out on that one! LOL!

[jackets22]

I bought the twofishes brand epoxy.

[Deb91]

Dileggi I sent you a pm.

[Lotus99]

I've been attaching corals to smaller pieces of rock (small fist size or smaller), so that I can move them around easily, but so that they're much more secure.

For branching LPS (candy canes, torch, hammer, frogspawn), I try to find a rock with a hole in it that snugly fits the stem, then I can just move that rock around if I want to move the coral.

I know I'll be rescaping and upgrading lights at some point, and I don't want to have to restrict how I can place my larger rocks.