Mounting ACAN Frags

[THEPHISHGUY]

So I just spent a rediculous amount of money on acan frags. :rollface: My question is, one of the vendors who I purchased from (the cultivated reef AAAA++++) told me that I should build a "ramp" down from the top of the frag right below the polyps down to the frag plug. I can see his point that you dont want the coral to have to grown down a vertical wall. Is this correct? I just did one and boy does it look ugly!!!! Is there any better method to this. I have mostly proped zoas and you dont really have to worry with them cause they are cut with little to no calcerous skeleton, obviously this is not the case with acans. Can anyone suggest a better more aesthically pleasing way? TIA THEPHISHGUY!!!!

 

[gflat65]

Depending on the size rock you are gluing them onto, you may be able to take a wood boring bit and make a little indentation to crddle it in. It will dull the bit pretty quickly, though.

I have glued my frags to a flat rock with no issues. They typically put on polyps pretty fast (once acclimated to the system), so they cover the vertical wall in no time and start to encrust the rock they are glued to.

 

[All Delight]

You can use epoxy to build the ramp. I pesonally like to get a screw driver and make a ditch in the rock and try to mount the frag as flat as possible. So the acan can have a smooth transition to grow. It'll look better.

 

[cee]

You will get the most "natural looking" results doing what is proposed, but be wary of the heat generated by the epoxy. The will grow vertically as gflat states, and once it gets larger and the polyps puff, you'll hardly be able to tell. Hope that helps.

Dave

 

[ReefDoctorMicromussas]

Take a wad of 2 part epoxy... roll it between your hands like in 1st grade to form a worm.. now wrap the "worm" around the frag and squish it into place... this will allow the polyps to easily overgrow your newly created "Ramp", they will look natural and grow faster unimpeded

 

[djmuzzi]

Any opinions on the best epoxy?

THEPHISHGUY:

lets see some pics!

 

[THEPHISHGUY]

Pics of my new friends... The first one is way more orange then the pics. I got it Rommel at Ultimate Frags. SUPER AWESOME SELLER!!!

These are from the captive reef and reefkingdom.com Both awesome sellers as well. Three are micros though...

 

[djmuzzi]

Very nice!

 

[JenDub]

There is a couple ways to go about this, it just really depends on what you want to stare at in your tank.

1) The putty technique. Roll up a piece of putty, stick it to the bottom of the frag. Mount the frag to a plug, disk, rock rubble, etc,. Work the putty out so it is like a ramp for your frag. (I use a chopstick for this part, get's into the small grooves).

2) The superglue technique. Towel off any moisture on the frag and the mount. Add a squeeze full of glue to plug and mount frag. Then add another outlining squeeze around frag for added protection. (A lot of times, I lay the frag on it side instead of straight up. This helps it to encrust on the plug faster).

3) The hole in the rock technique. Find a nice place in your live rock. Take a screwdriver or something you can grind out a hole. Place putty/epoxy or superglue in the hole and place the frag. This is a more permanent method so don't use if you plan on fragging down the road but it gives a more natural look. The rock should come up on all sides, if not, stuff with epoxy.

I know there are other methods out there but I have used these 3 and find they work great. Good luck and keep the pics coming. =)

Ciao
Jen

 

[djmuzzi]

While we are on the subject...

Jen what do you feed your Acan & micro frags? are Arcti-pods good?

 

[JenDub]

yup, just make sure you check the exp. date. I think shelf life is 6 months but if opened in refrig, 3 months.

I use a "slaw" of foods. Cyclo-peez, mysis, krill, squid, arcti-pods, phyto-feast, and roti-feast. I need to get my hands on the tigger-pods (live jumbo marine copepods).

Sometimes I just feed cyclo and mysis on light days but when I do a big feed, I try to add a good variety of meaty foods.

Feeding schedule-

Monday- heavy feed
Tuesday- no feed
Wednesday- light feed
Thursday- no feed
Friday- heavy feed
Saturday- no feed
Sunday- no feed

This is working for me now. When I don't feed over the weekend, by Monday they are hungry and trap a lot more food=)

 

[djmuzzi]

Is that reef chili stuff good?

 

[Fliger]

Great info and nice frags! And thecaptivereef is great, very happy with my order from them last week. The micro bug sucks, I'm out more than $2k over the last month and I even got "good deals"! :lol:

I have been feeding the pump bottle cyclop-eeze, they seem to love it. The smallest mysis I can get is still too big. I ran out of arcti-pods but assume they would be ok also. I wish I would have been feeding the 5 micro colonies I got from aquadesignz over a year ago. I'm sure they would have grown faster.

 

[Fliger]

Also I got this off of ebay for $22, its super nice for smaller micro frags. My 2-3 polyp frags kept getting abused by flow/fish/snails/starfish (at night). So I have them in this up towards the top of my tank and its super easy to target feed the micros until they're a little bigger. The seller is jimelrr and he has all different sizes.

 

[djmuzzi]

what was that item called on ebay?

 

[THEPHISHGUY]

Yeah seriously, that thing is slick. I could use one of those bad!

 

[THEPHISHGUY]

Here is a link to the seller

http://cgi.ebay.com/ISOLATION-STATI...5QQihZ018QQcategoryZ46308QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

 

[Fliger]

Yeah thats him, he had all diff sizes, I got the 12x4x4 and its great. I was going to have him make me a custom one at 20x4x4 but it would take to long so I got two 12x4x4 and they work great, I even have a few larger micro colonies in there. Also great for propping SPS and such.

 

[EMBRYOGUY]

i use aquarium silicon to form a ramp around the frags.