Rearranging & Epoxy/Super gluing wet rock

[Gladrags]

Hello,

 

just started cycling my Biocube 32g about 2 weeks ago. I’ve been checking my water every few days and started my cycle with live sand from store, dry rock, Seed by aquavitro and saltwater from store. I didn’t put a lot of thought into my rocks and actually added them after I had put sand and water into the tank but before cycling. I now need to change up my aquascape because I just really want to change it and definitely doing it before I get corals or fish in there. 

 

Whats the the best way to do this to get the best bond and hopefully not killing all the bacteria I’ve started to build up over the last few weeks. I figured pull the rocks out, break up what I want to, let them dry a little bit (like 30 mins or so) and then put them together with epoxy putty and gorilla glue gel. Wait ~30 mins to let it cure more and then put it back into the tank. Don’t know the full look yet so hopefully I can design it into 2 pieces so it’s not too big dropping it back in. 

 

Is this a good idea or am I over thinking it especially since I don’t have anything in there. I just don’t want it to fall down and break something. I want it to be more vertical but question stability since it’s already wet. 

[Gladrags]

It wouldn't be fun but I am all for removing a lot of it and starting back over if it means I will have a much more stable reef. I would like it to have as much depth as possible and overhangs. So if it would be best to just remove everything, let it dry a little and create it before putting it back in the water, I am willing to do that. I am waiting until the new year before anything living goes in there (outside of bacteria).

[Tired]

What are you wanting to do? A lot of structures can just be stacked carefully. Archways and large pieces made of small rubble are your main problems that will need gluing. 

[Lula_Mae]

Leaving the rock out for that long will likely kill off a lot of the life on the rock. Many people just stack rocks but if you need some glued together you can try a superglue-epoxy-superglue "sandwich" between the rocks to stick them together. If you're going to glue them together, just work quickly, you want the rock out of water as little time as possible, generally.

[Clown79]

I would not advise letting the rock dry, any bacteria built up on it will die off.

 

You can epoxy the rocks while they are wet.

 

Have you been testing during the cycle? 

[Gladrags]

I just decided to take them out, break them up a little and build something new. I wanted to have some over hangs and separated vertical shelfs to make it look more natural than just staking them together in the middle. I am much happier with it now and like it being secured with epoxy/glue. They were probably out of the water for about 2  hrs so they dried but not completely. Good thing is I still have about a month before I am even considering putting anything in there (because I am taking a week long trip around the holidays) so I will just test my water and see what happens. Right before removing the rocks, I was at 0 ammonia, high levels of nitrites, and small levels of nitrate. I am going to test it again later tonight/tomorrow and see where it went too. I agree it would have been so much easier to just do this 2 weeks ago but wasn't really thinking past just getting the process going so glad I spent the time and re-did the design even though it was a mess. 

[Christopher Marks]

Good call @Gladrags! 2 hrs isn’t so bad, I don’t think it will effect your cycle much. Since you have time to let it settle in too, all will be well. 

[banasophia]

48 minutes ago, Gladrags said:

I just decided to take them out, break them up a little and build something new. I wanted to have some over hangs and separated vertical shelfs to make it look more natural than just staking them together in the middle. I am much happier with it now and like it being secured with epoxy/glue. They were probably out of the water for about 2  hrs so they dried but not completely. Good thing is I still have about a month before I am even considering putting anything in there (because I am taking a week long trip around the holidays) so I will just test my water and see what happens. Right before removing the rocks, I was at 0 ammonia, high levels of nitrites, and small levels of nitrate. I am going to test it again later tonight/tomorrow and see where it went too. I agree it would have been so much easier to just do this 2 weeks ago but wasn't really thinking past just getting the process going so glad I spent the time and re-did the design even though it was a mess. 

Sounds like you came up with a good solution!!! Looking forward to seeing pics. 

[A.m.P]

Some folks have to frag sections of corals off live rock and leave theirs out for hours at a time, the bacteria and algae on the rocks will be totally-fine. For future-reference cyanoacrylate actually forms a film and can set-faster when wet so if you wanted to baste the rocks with tank water to keep them from totally drying-out you would have been fine.
The bacteria and algae in our systems are far more resilient than people are giving them credit for here, even small-pods will be fine out of water for an hour or two, they'll just retreat into the rockwork where it's still damp.
As long as you're not baking the rock in the sun a few hours shouldn't do much at all.

[Gladrags]

Yeah, I think I was just being over cautious but glad I took them out so I could plan it out better. As far as adding or changing something in the future what do you guys recommend as the best technique? Say I was just adding 1 dry rock to the tank on top of an existing structure: mix epoxy and then use sandwich technique, apply superglue gel to rock, apply epoxy to rock, superglue gel to exposed side and then insert into tank at desired location?

[A.m.P]

2 hours ago, Gladrags said:

Yeah, I think I was just being over cautious but glad I took them out so I could plan it out better. As far as adding or changing something in the future what do you guys recommend as the best technique? Say I was just adding 1 dry rock to the tank on top of an existing structure: mix epoxy and then use sandwich technique, apply superglue gel to rock, apply epoxy to rock, superglue gel to exposed side and then insert into tank at desired location?

That has the best chance of working, to be honest since you're working with rocks that you're purposefully growing life on there's always a fair-chance it might not adhere to the surface very well.

[banasophia]

The superglue-epoxy-superglue method worked incredibly well on my scape I just did... I thought it sounded really messy when friends described it to me, but it wasn’t messy and the connection looks decent even though it’s visible. My rock was still dry though. And yayyy! Went to snap this pic and I have diatoms!!