Fraggin corals

[Albertan22]

What I do is use a combination of superglue gel and epoxy. Outside of the water, I make my ball of epoxy, then place a gob of superglue gel on it and stick the coral to it. I then place another gob of gel on the underside of the epoxy ball and press it into the rock (in the water) where I want the coral to go. The superglue holds the coral in place on the epoxy, and keeps the epoxy held to the rock until the epoxy hardens. You have to be generous with the superglue you're using on the rock/epoxy step because it skins over as soon as you put it into the water, so you want a good gob so there's still unhardened gel when you press it into the rock.

I've used this method with great sucess. Some of my more sensitive corals close up for a day after doing this in my tank, but if I run some carbon, they're always happy again within 24 hours.

[lastlight]

So are you using just a tiny ball of epoxy for some interface with the gel or is the epoxy ball large enough that it wraps around the base of the frag? Do you have a pic of one freshly mounted?

[o.c.d.]

sewing them like a button works as well. Two very small holes in the frag about 1/2inch apart then two more in what ever you are mounting too. then sew them together with spider wire (very small transparent fishing line). Many times I'll use a combination of gluing small rubble in between monti and mounting disk to tighten up the sewing.

[68shelby]

Thank you all, I got my monti. remounted (took two tries) but he is doing well only chipped off along one edge. managed to find a rock I could wedge his previous base into. Wrapped the base in aquascape epoxy and held him in place for a few minutes, then put him back in the tank, Turned off my powerheads so as to not blow him around unneccesarily. He is doing well now.

[Albertan22]

Originally Posted by lastlight

So are you using just a tiny ball of epoxy for some interface with the gel or is the epoxy ball large enough that it wraps around the base of the frag? Do you have a pic of one freshly mounted?

I've done both depending on where I'm mounting the frag on the rock. If it's a flatter surface, a small ball is all that is usually necessary, but for some of those tricky nooks sometimes you need a bit of a bigger ball. The main purpose of the epoxy when using the method I described above is to create an interface between the flat frag plug and the not so flat liverock. Here's an old photo I found of a fresh mount:

[Lance]

Originally Posted by Albertan22

What I do is use a combination of superglue gel and epoxy. Outside of the water, I make my ball of epoxy, then place a gob of superglue gel on it and stick the coral to it. I then place another gob of gel on the underside of the epoxy ball and press it into the rock (in the water) where I want the coral to go. The superglue holds the coral in place on the epoxy, and keeps the epoxy held to the rock until the epoxy hardens. You have to be generous with the superglue you're using on the rock/epoxy step because it skins over as soon as you put it into the water, so you want a good gob so there's still unhardened gel when you press it into the rock.

I've used this method with great sucess. Some of my more sensitive corals close up for a day after doing this in my tank, but if I run some carbon, they're always happy again within 24 hours.

This is exactly what I do and it works great. In fact I think I may have got the idea from you in a post quite a while back. I've recently been using the Coralstick epoxy from O.C. It's the best I've seen yet.

for montipora caps I get a 1 pound pies of base dry rock and carve it out a bit so the bottom of the monti is supported then use gel super glue I use quite a bit mostly on bottom side so the out side edge can encrust the base rock works well for me other wise I find a slit in a rock and place monti on it and let it encrust by it's self.

I am using epoxy for frags of branching corals like candy cane and the likes.

Bill