How do I mount candy cane and get a nice tight colony?

[Caragol]

I've got two frags that were a few heads each and I just pinched the base between some existing live rock in my tank pointing sideways. Well, they've grown quite a bit, I'm at about 15 heads on each and I have to stop being lazy about mounting frags (seriously, I've got frag plugs encrusted by coral to my live rock, it's not a great look).

So, how do you mount these guys? It's sort of a jagged clip at the base, not a smooth cut, though I suppose I could pull out my dremel and get the job done there. Do I just glue the base to a chunk of rock so it points straight up? Or at a slight angle?

Also, I see people with big lush colonies with all the heads snuggled closely together like a big softball, but my heads also don't seem to grow too tightly together. Is that just a maturity thing that they'll fill in more as they grow?

 

[Don-Coraleone]

give it time and they should grow into the colony your looking for. target feed them and that should spur thier growth.

 

[Caragol]

I haven't been target feeding, that's worth a shot. Should I just glue it to a rock like I do my sps?

 

[Reefer07]

Do you target feed candy canes only when their tentacles are out? My candy canes are very healthy and have gotten bigger but I haven't gotten any new heads. I was interested in feeding them but it only seems that their tentacles come out at night a few hours after lights off.

 

[jadeguppy]

I have some mounted and some wedged in holes in rocks. Either way is fine as long as you like where it is. I have one that had too short of a stem to drill a hole in a rock for it so I sanded the bottom to get a good surface and then superglued it to a frag disk. It sits on the sand in my nano. Your choice on how you want it.

For feeding, try putting a little food into the water column. That will often stimulate them to open up. You may have to slowly get it use to this by doing it after lights out and then right before. Within 10-15 minutes they usually respond. After a while they will be much faster to respond.

 

[Reefer07]

What type of food do they eat? I feed my tank mysis shrimp and cyclopeze during the week.

 

[Don-Coraleone]

i actually keep mine in the sand for some reason they grow best there for me. and yeah give target feding a shot it works.

 

[DesertBandits]

Vodka dosing grew out my colony very nicely. If you are unfamiliar; vodka causes the growth of bacteria, which in turn get eaten by the coral, suppling a quality natural food source. Works great with SPS too.

 

[Jefe12234]

For mounting these I look for a nice hole in the rock where the branch will fit. If it's still not very secure then I use epoxy putty to hold it in place. I've also used a dremel to cut out bits from the rock and branch that will allow the epoxy to lock the branch in place. I would never trust superglue alone to hold since these corals don't encrust at all. As for compactness of growth, I think a lot of it just depends on the specific colony you get.

 

[dan10342]

once cured.... superglue is very very strong. i see it as very under-rated. i once had soemthing superglued. instead of pulling a skeleton from where i superglued... i acidentally broke the skeleton, right above where the superglue secured it to the rock, not the glue itself.

epoxy works too.

i dont trust just sticking corals in the rockwork, and hoping it stays there.