June meeting question "Glueing corals"

[katlongo]

I like to use a combination of a small amount of putty and super glue. I super glue the frags to the putty and use the putty to stick to the rock. The underwater putty seems to stick to the rock better than supergluing directly to the rock.

 

[mladencovic]

the elkhorn was the only one i didn't glu because it was already attached with epoxy (putty).

It was done with Mr. Sticky's Underwater Glue :

http://www.championlighting.com/product.php?productid=21461

i can't find the kenya tree frag though. it's in there somewhere. ???

Drop by again, and I will give you a few more frags of Kenya trees (not today, I will have guests for BBQ and my wife will kill me if I don't spend "quality" time with the family instead of the fish in the basement).

One mounting technique for softies like Kenya tree, Lether corals, Toadstool frags and other slimmers is to cover them with very fine mash (like for veils). Another one is to "saw" them to the rock - basically put a nylon thread through the base and attach it to the rock. The last one looks a bit too much for me. I have some of the veil mash if you want.

 

[mladencovic]

I like to use a combination of a small amount of putty and super glue. I super glue the frags to the putty and use the putty to stick to the rock. The underwater putty seems to stick to the rock better than supergluing directly to the rock.

I did "experiment" with the idea that I saw on the meeting (thanks Rich) about adding superglue to the epoxy and mixing it all together. Interestingly, when I added it to the epoxy that was months and months old, and almost all dry and difficult to mix (outer component was crunchy), I got a mix that was very sticky, very strong, and bonded to the rock under water with no problems. When I used the same superglue on the stick from the same company but which is relatively new (just opened), I got a much weaker epoxy that was much more stickier in my gloves, but was very soft and not sticky under water. It completely lost its stickiness while I was shaping it underwater. In a desperate move I added a drop of crazy glue to contact surface of the epoxy mix (use a glue to glue the glue ) and that FIXED the problem. It cured almost instantly which was important since I was attaching the coral to the vertical surface.