To Glue or Not to Glue (Live Rock)

[MaxxedMan]

I'm getting in 75 lbs of BRS dead rock and was wondering if I should just place it, or glue it together. In my old reef, my DSB had the rocks placed on top and a Maroon Clown kept digging and collapsing. Was a real pain for me.

This time I have only a 2" sand bed, and i'm placing the rocks on the glass bottom, not on the sand.

Should I find a look I like, and just glue? or just find a good fit so they are unlikely to move?

[Putty]

Why would you glue the rock together? What if you need to get something out behind it? I have at least 130lbs in my tank, stacked, and it never falls. Form your rock before you put water in. That helps.

[MaxxedMan]

That's how I'm leaning, I just saw another post where a member suggested glue, and I like the idea of at least one spire

[Reefmedic79]

To Reef Central

I've seen people glue their rocks together without any issues, I'd say it entirely up to your preferences or peace of mind. Especially if you want to make something unique, I would use a liberal amount of aquarium putty epoxy and let it fully cure before getting it wet.

As Putty stated though keep in mind that you may have to lift the lareg piece of rock once its all stuck together.

[Agu]

Personally I've never glued or epoxied rock together. Primarily because after mounting frags I didn't find the bond to be very strong.

A lot of people have had greater success drilling the rock and using plastic/acrylic rods to create aquascapes that stay in place.

[sleepydoc]

I used a cyanoacrylate gel glue to glue my base rock together. I did it primarily to keep it stable but found the bond to be fairly strong. It does let you make some formations that might not be stable enough on their own.

I did it before putting the rock in the water and let it dry overnight. I wasn't exactly trying to pry it apart, either, but then, neither will the fish!

[foxandhound]

I wouldnt glue or drill...too costly and unnecessary for me, but I only have a 75g. The way I see it, rock needs crevices for filtration. Sometimes, you gotta move everything to get to something! I like the drill and rods idea, but I know I would crack an entire rock if I used a drill bc Im just not handy!

[DUPioneers]

One thing about gluing/epoxying/mortaring rocks together is that it allows you to create aquascapes that aren't otherwise possible...or, at least, advisable.

As others have mentioned, though, you have to be wise about what you are doing. Never forget that you will likely have to move that behemoth of aquascape at some time or another...and standing over your tank trying to curl a 200+ lb rock structure isn't the time to discover that you shouldn't have let that gym membership lapse...

Should you decide to go ahead with gluing, check out the mortar at MarcoRocks: http://www.marcorocks.com/bondingmortar.aspx

[waeleldasher]

I don't glue or use rods in my 120g DT. I have about 100+ lbs of LR in there. As long as you place them in stable positions you should be fine. That doesn't mean you can't have an interesting configuration. This is an old photo, but I have since added more LR, some corals died/replaced and changed the config to allow for more open caves since some fish are territorial about their caves.



cheers

Wael

[waeleldasher]

I'd like to add that often when you start off in this hobby, you'll learn details about your tank as you go along. For example the initial configuration I started with looked great and seemed to work, but I learned later on that to increase the flow in the back was important for the algae and the shy fish that still need to swim against the current and don't like being at the front. Had I glued it, the change would have been much harder.

I believe may of the LFS glue their LR in their show tanks, but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone starting with a new DT because the learning curve is fast and you'll want to have the options to make changes without hassles.

But that's just me...looking for hassle free life

cheers

Wael

[Hephalump]

You could just use a little bit of cyanoacrylate to hold the rocks in place, but not so much that you couldn't bust it lose with just a little bit of force. I've generally found that krazy glue isn't really all that strong.

I've actually been considering putting a little dot of glue where each of my rocks meet for this very purpose.

[Saltydrip]

Why not do both??

I'm planing a 150 build eventually and unlike my curant 55 I'm going to plan it and design it slowly and with the right knowledge. I plan to do a phew big towers and overhangs with glues base rock and then fill in the blanks with loose live rock. Maybe only 25% of my rock would be glued leaving room to move and clean my aquascape.

[windyridge]

Here's mine not glued. I have had to rearrange a piece or two so I am glad it's not glued.

[Putty]

No glue

[dublo8]

I used the marco rocks bonding mortar. Obviously your not going to stick them all together but you could do a few choice pieces to help build a nice scape.

Here is mine after it cycled. The 3 main pieces are built from 2-3 larger rocks bonded with the Marco mortar.

ImageUploadedByTapatalk1328658402.868968.jpg

[Scienceman]

I set up ~3 months ago and after deciding I liked the rock arrangement I used an epoxy putty to help stabilize it by pushing it into locations where key rocks touched but didnt look like they had much surface in actual contact. Also where some rocks were less than fully stable the epoxy helped with this. The epoxy therefore increased the contact support at this location and provided some bonding but this can be broken pretty easily if needed. Best of both worlds IMO.

[Saltydrip]

It seems to me that those whe are more confident in the ability don't glue. There is nothing wrong with glueing your rockwork. I have has several planted FW builds where you couldn't move things because of how much was going on. I was a mason and brick layer for a phew years and love dry set stone walls. I am currently withought glue in my tank but on my next build my GF wants a really cool aquascape with a large arch in the middle and several spires. Basicly make it look like the reminants of Atlantis. It will be tuff to do in a 150 but I think I can fit it. I'll sbasicly build a 3sided plywood box and build a scale model in the shop befor building the tank. The large segments will be glued but manageable. Im already starting to put things on paper and the build is about a year away.