Mounting SPS

[dcombs44]

Hi,

I've read a few articles on this, but most cover mounting the frag to a plug, not mounting the plug to the liverock, so here's my story.

I got some sps frags from a fellow club member last night. All but one of them were mounted to plugs that were about 2x3 inch pieces of rock with completely flat bottoms. I mounted the other piece on one of my own plugs that look more like a short stubby golf tee.

I went ahead and got them into the tank last night, and all polyps were extended this morning before the lights came on. All of the frags are pretty hardy as far as sps go. I got a blue digi, a purple digi, an orange monti cap, and an orange digi.

My question is, what's the best way to mount the larger flat bottomed pieces that the frags are mounted on to my live rock?

I have some marineland epoxy type putty that you smash together and it activates and hardens. Is that something I could use to try to attach them, and if so, can I do this under water, or do I need to remove the pieces of live rock that I'm mounting to? If I have to remove them, how long is a safe amount of time to have the montis out of the water. They do slime alot, so I figure I have a decent sized window, but I wasn't sure. This is my first go round with sps. Thanks in advance.

 

[TKByrnes]

you can use the epoxy underwater. just set the frags on your rock where you wany them and smash the epoxy on the sides of the coral base rocks down against the reef. you can keep the coral out of the water for about 20 minutes with no issues. zoanthids can go an hour or two out of water just for some info.

 

[dcombs44]

Perfect. Thanks. I knew it probably wouldn't stick if I put it on the bottom of the plug, but sealing it around the sides sounds like it'll work well.

Thanks again.

 

[nevermind]

Epoxy by itself won't hold once you get it into the water, especially if the bottoms are flat on the plugs. Best way I have found is to use crazy glue and a bit of epoxy together. Glue the bottom of the plug (or frag) to the epoxy, then glue the epoxy to your live rock, smooth out the epoxy and you're done.

Sps encrust a lot better on epoxy than on hardened crazy glue. If you can break the frag off the plug, use the glue/epoxy method and just jam the frag into the epoxy. It's alright to cover the flesh a bit, it won't kill them.

 

[dcombs44]

Really? Everything I've read states that the epoxy will kill any flesh that it touches due to the chemical reaction is causes when activated. I have heard that a healthy frag will encrust over the epoxy better than the glue.

Thanks for the input. I'll see what I have the best luck with.

 

[Kep]

I used to use epoxy and that stupid tube that you have to kneed to activate. They both suck compared to superglue. I superglue everything now.