Glue? - Need exact name

A

A_Sig

[Just wondering which glue is the best for sps frags. Lately i'v just been wedging the frags into a whole in the live rock and it has been working very well for me. But i got a frag of orange cap, and the spot where i want to put it, it keeps falling off. So i need to know what is the name of the glue that most of you guys with sps tanks use.]
 
[Loctite works great for me if I can pull the rock that I am gluing the frag to. If you are trying to glue underwater then the epoxy is best.]
 
[Garf.org sells a reef glue. Pretty pricey but really good. epoxy and uses the salt water as a catalytic agent, it seems - fast set and strong.. I've used the Loctite Super Glue gel and it was good and much more economical but more watery than the Garf glue.
I had read about the AquaMend on this thread and tried it out on repairing a sprinkler valve that had gone south. It did work - however, it's a two-part expoxy, one part being a lime color and the other a white colored material. You knead them together until they are one color and then it is ready to use. It takes 20 minutes to harden.

Point being that if you are planning on mounting some frags that will be placed in the water current or the frags are fairly large/heavy frags or using it to fasten reef rocks together, that expoxy has pretty much the holding power of raw warm pie dough for around 15-18 minutes of that 20 minutes hardening time.

So you will either have to wait until the last minutes of the 20 minutes to mount your frags/what have you or figure out some temporary supports to hold your work pieces while the epoxy hardens...]
 
[I vote both. I used superglue to get the frag mounted then epoxy around it to make sure it stays. Charles is right about the epoxy not holding well. I fI just use epoxy I try to find a hole in the rock to fill with epoxy then press the frag into it. I have also used it to hold colonies they snails bump over. I just press epoxy around a couple edges and hope a turbo dont push it around for 20 minutes.]
 
[I went to CVS pharmacy store ( like walgreen and Eckerd) and found their own brand Super glue GEL for 2 dollars for 2 tubes and buy one gets one free. So, I got 4 tubes for 2 bucks. This store located on Mcdermott and Coit Rd in Plano for someone near that area to get to.

Louie]
 
[Wal-Mart also carries a Scotch Brand Gel Glue that has two tubes on the card and I believe I paid a little under 2.00 for it. It was much easier to work with than the epoxy for me and holds strong enough for what I have needed it for. When I put a bead of gel on the piece it holds it's bead pretty good and then I hold it together for a minute or so and it does seem to harden a lot then as it goes in to the salt water and I usually hold it for a minute or so after placing it in the water. So far I have had good luck with it not cloging up the little point where it comes out of the tube at and I don't have to worry about the mixture. My corals have never seemed to be harmed at all from this gel glue. Of course with the pieces that give off an excessive amount of slime I have not found any gel glue that will work on them. I have to tie it or sew it down in place.]
 
[first, i am new to coral.

I just bought a red colored carribbean mushroom. It is small about 0.5". Should i use super glue to stick it on some where? I dont have LR right now. Can I use the dead coral decor instead of LR? How to do it also? Right now, the mushroom just on the sand.

thanks]
 
[Mushrooms are too slimy to really stick good with superglue. Your best bet is to place it on a piece of rock/dead coral of your choice and keep it in a low flow area where it will hopefully attach in a couple days. You can also stick a toothpick in it to hold it to the rock.

I keep a small tupperware bowl full of rubble on the sandbed in my lowest flow area for softie frags to attach to stuff.]
 
[If you do as Amanda recommended, then after the mushroom is attached to the CC substrate (or tiny rubble), you can then put Super Glue GEL on the rubble and glue that to a boulder. It is a nice way to decorate the tank the way you prefer.]
 
[It just amazes me that you can use super glue gel to attach corals... I thought that it was toxic... even on the labelling there's warnings about it touching the skin. Does this have any sort of affect on the coral? Just seems strange to me...]
 
[I would say it isn't enough of a danger to kill the coral. I try to dab it at the end of the coral where the tissue isn't - on the white skeletal section. I do add a little bit around the base once it is affixed, and new tissue grows right over it.]
 
[Mark is right,, this is the way I do all my frags as well,, and if you are doing sps frags you will notice that out of water SPS corals have a Gel/slime coat over them. In the wild some of these are exposed to direct sunlight when the tides change for hours at a time. Its a defense for them . So with hard corals its okay to hold the frag in place while gentley blowing at the base to get it to set..

Generally with softcorals their is several ways to get them to attach. one of the easiest is to take cheesecloth , place your fragment on what is going to be its home and wrap the cheese cloth around it with a rubber band on each side. wait 2 days and then remove it. Another way is to take fishing line on a needle and pierce the coral and tie it down. after 2-3 days cut it off ,, it will attach.......]
 
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