joey13254 Posted January 29, 2016 Share Posted January 29, 2016 When you buy a coral on a plug,do you leave it on the plug for awhile in your tank or can you go ahead and take it off the plug and place it on your rock. How do you go about doing that. Ive tried looking up videos but haven't found any showing the process. What products do you use use to glue them to your main rocks for different corals. Do you have to take your main rocks out to do it? Link to comment
Newstead Posted January 29, 2016 Share Posted January 29, 2016 Joey, I am no expert (hopefully one will weigh in) but I dip the corals, examine them for pests or algae, then if I can, take them off the plug. I usually glue them first to live rock runble, place them in tank or QT without gluing down until I know they like the placement (and I do too). Then I glue or putty them in place. Use pure superglue gel - the cyanoacrylate (sp?) stuff. If you are going to use putty, you put super glue gel on plug, then putty, then more super glue. Link to comment
TFish77 Posted January 29, 2016 Share Posted January 29, 2016 When you buy a coral on a plug,do you leave it on the plug for awhile in your tank or can you go ahead and take it off the plug and place it on your rock. How do you go about doing that. Ive tried looking up videos but haven't found any showing the process. What products do you use use to glue them to your main rocks for different corals. Do you have to take your main rocks out to do it? Ok so there is no "right" way to go about doing this. I will walk you through my process to hopefully give a better idea. So first things first. I get my coral home and temp acclimate them just like you would a fish. This isn't a huge deal and I mainly do it while I get other stuff ready. Next thing is to prepare a small amount of coral dip to remove any unwanted parasites. This in my mind is an absolute must as you never know what could hitchhike in on a frag and decimate your tank. I use a small piece of tupperware, a small amount of tank water, and the appropriate amount of Coral R/X (4 caps per gallon I believe but read the directions). I also use a small syringe to "blast" the corals a bit while they are in the dip to remove anything that is stubborn. I do this for on average about 10 minutes but always double check what type of coral you have and their sensitivity to dips. Now to answer your question earlier you can absolutely detach the coral from the plug. Its really a matter of personal preference. Here is an example of a couple corals I detached from the plugs and put directly on the rocks and one that I just left on the plug and glued down. I like the more natural look without the plug but keeping the plug can sometimes make it easier to remove corals if need be. Now when it comes to what I actually use to glue down corals it can vary but its usually glue, putty, or a combination of both. In my experience I try and just use the glue whenever I can but for larger and unbalanced frags I usually need both. When it comes to glueing corals down inside of your tank it can be a bit tricky. In my experience it is always best to put a bit of glue down on the bottom of the plug or coral and put some putty on top of that. I then put another dab of glue on the bottom of the plug and quickly get the frag in the water and placed. I find that pushing down with a bit of a twisting motion helps the coral to get a better hold. Using a combination of both the glue and the putty helps to be able to put corals in interesting places in and around rocks. Once the glue and putty sets they shouldn't move around on you at all. Here are a couple examples just to give you an idea. Look near the bottom of the corals and you can see the putty. The corals will eventually encrust over anything that's there so you wont see putty or glue for long. Here are some without plugs. Here are some with plugs. That bubble gum monster at the top started as a very small piece on a plug and quickly covered it. Before you do any of this though I would always look up the type of coral you have and their sensitivity levels. Some types of coral are more sensitive to dips, some are more sensitive to handling, some don't frag well, etc, etc. I hope this helps. Happy Reefing! Link to comment
dadummy Posted January 29, 2016 Share Posted January 29, 2016 nice ,detailed post, love the sticks Link to comment
TFish77 Posted January 29, 2016 Share Posted January 29, 2016 nice ,detailed post, love the sticks Ha thanks! When I finally get around to finishing my build thread I will have much better pictures :-) Link to comment
joey13254 Posted January 30, 2016 Author Share Posted January 30, 2016 Thanks for the info. Im fixing to be getting some corals and was wondering about this. You all have made it clearer to me. Link to comment
Newstead Posted January 30, 2016 Share Posted January 30, 2016 TFish's post should be a sticky! Link to comment
10gNano4Me Posted March 4, 2016 Share Posted March 4, 2016 Just wanted to put this out there also. There is a product called " Milliput" that you can use. You can make your own custom frag plugs with this. I used it to attach the dead coral for my 10g aquascape adventure last month. Link to comment
Astinus Posted March 5, 2016 Share Posted March 5, 2016 THANK YOU! TFish77!!! As a newby to this Hobby..I was edumacated a lot! TFish's post should be a sticky! Totally agree! Link to comment
TFish77 Posted March 5, 2016 Share Posted March 5, 2016 THANK YOU! TFish77!!! As a newby to this Hobby..I was edumacated a lot! Totally agree! Lol I do what I can. I learned so much from everyone else here I figured I would try and pay it forward! Link to comment
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