Placing Corals

[AquaSquid]

Here is something I have been wondering. Placing corals in the aquarium. How is it done? I don't mean in terms of location , or acclimatizing them. I mean how do you get them to stay where you want. This may seem obvious to you pro' s but, I'm confused. I have this (what I think) great live rock formation, I come home from the LFS with a coral frag,
I find a nice spot for it now what? Do I wedge it into place? Do I disassemble my rock pile and dry the rock so that I can glue the frag to said rock? Won't this kill my live rock? Am I limited to only flat spots? Someone please help.

PS no laughing!

[graphixx]

I would glue the frags to a rock , this will give you a more stable base for them and help in them not tipping over

[jerryc]

I usual remove a Small rock from the tank and glue it with super glue gel
i first fill a bole with tank water glue the frag put it in the bole for a few minutes to let the glue to set and return to tank.


Don't put the water back in

[vitosreef]

Epoxy putty (plumbers putty) will cure under water and can be used to attach stony corals or rocks with corals on them to the live rock. The stuff comes in sticks at the local hardware store; you cut off a chunk, knead it together to mix the 2 parts, and you have thick putty that hardens in a few minutes and can be molded easily. It's white at first, but soon gets covered with algae and blends in. You'd think there would be a problem with toxicity, but not so; I got the idea from other people who have used this for years.

[Whoyah]

Be careful with using too much of the epoxy putty at one time. I used a whole stick one day to mount stuff and it freaked out my skimmer for weeks. A little at a time.

[davejnz]

For frags,superglue gel works great.With larger stoney corals i use a different method.Underwater epoxy when cured has alot of strength while superglue gel is a bond thats easily broken.The problem with the epoxy is that its not very sticky,it doesn't adhere well to rock/corals either(especially once wet).I take a little ball of epoxy,add some superglue to the base of the coral i'm going to attach then place the epoxy ball onto the superglue/coral base.I start dripping tank water on the superglue so it starts curing,i then start to mold the epoxy up onto the base of the coral smoothing it out over the superglue.After that is done,I'll dip the coral in the tank for a few seconds to let the superglue finish drying.I then add some more superglue to the bottom of the epoxy ball and firmly push it into the LR in the tank.Finally,I'll take a small plastic Salifert spoon and start smearing/spreading out the epoxy into the LR holes.

[jerryc]

Good remediation Dave thats close to whit i do for epoxy only i
just use my fingers to spread it

[vitosreef]

I'm a squish the epoxy into the nooks and crannies kind of guy ;)