Anyone else hate mounting corals?

[SFREEF3R]

I have about a dozen frags waiting to be mounted and I am dreading the work. I’ve been procrastinating for weeks.

First of all it’s physically demanding - hunching over my tank holding frags in place is taxing. I almost always make a mess dripping water everywhere. I get superglue and epoxy all over my hands and everything else. I’m rarely satisfied with the exact placement as it is very difficult (for me at least) to hold the corals in position and view through the front glass at a normal viewing angle. I regularly fail and need to retry glueing. And importantly, it is a big time commitment that will surely draw fire from my wife (we have an infant and “playing with my fish tank” falls about as low on the list of priorities as she can possibly imagine).

Likely a lot of my hesitation stems from the fact that I’m just not that proficient at mounting corals but I sort of find it comical how much I dread it as part of a hobby I absolutely love. Just wondering if anyone else relates!

 

[enlighten]

Teach the waifu how to mount corals, she is probably better at it anyways, and take care of the infant. I have a little toddler and my partner gives me the eye as well if I spend too much time on my hobbies. In regards to sharing dread on mounting corals, never done it before but will share my experience when the time comes. I will probably wear gloves.

 

[STEEZY]

I glue these frag holders from printed reef. They weight nothing so just place where you want and let it harden. Then insert a frag and easily switch out the frag if you want.

I also have an infant and I have to schedule “fish tank maintenance” with the wife.

 

[Tim'sReef]

Same here everytime I'm done I feel like a toddler with the mess I made

 

[ti_lavender]

I dread it for a different reason… my female clown bites me as soon as I put my hand in the tank. She’ll continue to do so and it still startles me. I’ve learned to be quicker at it with that motivation.

 

[SFREEF3R]

I will probably wear gloves.

A good call. I try to but I have less dexterity with gloves on so I end up doing some things without and inevitably get superglue all over my fingers

 

[SFREEF3R]

I dread it for a different reason… my female clown bites me as soon as I put my hand in the tank. She’ll continue to do so and it still startles me. I’ve learned to be quicker at it with that motivation.

I just redid my rock work, but prior to that my clown had decided to make a particular patch of hair algae its home and suddenly became extremely territorial. It was the same thing - if I even dipped a finger in my water it would shoot out to bite me. Not super painful but definitely startling! Fortunately it was just for a couple months, after I removed and rearranged everything (to remove any traces of hair algae) my clown is back to its normal timid self.

 

[Labridaedicted]

Yep, I have acros encrust onto the frag tank rack all the time because gluing frags is top 5 least fave things. Mostly because I hate getting glue and epoxy on my fingers. It's impossible to get off.

Used to hate it more because I had 2 urchins that would constantly knock them off after I did all that work. Now it's just occasionally the golf ball sized turbos or a particularly persistent large chiton that does it so it's more tolerable.

 

[SFREEF3R]

Very cool! When I took my rock work out recently I drilled a few 3/8 holes where I could without compromising the structure to make few spots for plugs, but with such a small hole needed for these stems presumably they could be added in many more locations.

I glue these frag holders from printed reef. They weight nothing so just place where you want and let it harden. Then insert a frag and easily switch out the frag if you want.

I also have an infant and I have to schedule “fish tank maintenance” with the wife.

 

[Kellie in CA]

I refuse to have frag plugs in my tank, so sometimes mounting corals is a challenge. It can be frustrating and I often end up with glue all over me. It is one of those things that gets easier over time though.... I pretty much have the process down now.

 

[o2manyfish]

I've had a reef tank for more than 30 years. And I have always loved working with the corals in my tank.

When we had to swap our 400g to a 560g which was 36" tall - I began to hate working with corals. The tank was too deep, my fat arms were too short, I had to drag a ladder in everytime to work on the tank. So I found an aquarium maintenance friend with Monkey like arms to reach into the tank and fix things every few weeks.

Six Months ago we went from the 560g to a 750g --- But only 30" deep, I learned my lesson! Unfortunately we had a crash due to a blow sump 4 months prior and had no corals. Being a coral addict and starting a 750g (120x48x30) tank with nothing was a daunting task. A week after the tank had water there was a local frag swap and I came away with 20+ pieces.

I go to the stores, the swaps, the tank closings and buy corals in groups at a time. And the thought of mounting 25-40 frags at a time is saddening. 20-40 frags in a 750g tank is nothing. So for me, who is extremely impatient in general, putting the patience into mounting all those frags to then step back and basically see nothing for my efforts is just not a rewarding experience.

Fortunately I can afford to hire "Monkey Arms" to come over and mount corals every few weeks. My wife says the expense alone is worth not listening to me curse and scream everytime a coral doesn't want to mount the way I want it to.

I still choose all the corals. And I determine where to put most of them and Monkey Arms does the wet work.

There's over 200 corals in the tank now, and I think I can say I have maybe mounted 20-30 of them in total.

As the tank starts to mature, and the tank looks like a coral tank and not a big box with some tiny colored sticks scattered around it, I will be more interested in doing more of the wet work.

But for now the idea of mounting a few dozen corals doesn't sound fun.

Theres a frag swap this Saturday.... Monkey Arms will be here on Monday


Dave B

 

[dadnjesse]

Maybe Monkey Arms can start their own business.

 

[Atherial]

I've been lucky in that my husband is willing to apply the glue for me. I get the frag out, he cuts off the plug and puts on the glue sandwich. Then I take it and stick it in the tank. It is not perfect, we both ended up with super glue fingers this week. And I have to wait until he has the free time/energy to help. But it does go much faster and much less mess than doing it myself.

 

[kevgib67]

My impatience makes it frustrating. My wife hates the smell of the apoxy that engulfs the room and I go to work on Mondays with apoxy under my fingernails and glue on my fingers. Never once have I looked at my placement and think now that’s perfect. It’s more like, oh well, when the urchin or turbo snail knocks it off I’ll mount it so it is slightly 10 degrees to the right.

 

[mike550]

The glue/epoxy/glue sandwich works well and you get better at it with practice. Couple of things I’ve learned recently. If you see the videos from TidalGarden and WorldWideCoral you get a sense of how “sturdy” corals can be when it comes to handling. It also gives you a sense of the motions to mount frags. Another thing I’m considering is removing the corals from the plugs (or at least just the stems) and mounting them to small pieces of rock while they sit in QT. Then I just place the coral and rock onto the rockwork of my display

 

[STEEZY]

(delete)

 

[face]

Ya its a pain. Maybe try mounting on aragonite vs ceramic if you are having trouble. I use https://www.bulkreefsupply.com/10-pack-aquadome-frag-mounts-reefsmart.html

 

[Rusty_L_Shackleford]

I dread it for a different reason… my female clown bites me as soon as I put my hand in the tank. She’ll continue to do so and it still startles me. I’ve learned to be quicker at it with that motivation.

My blue neon goby immediately jumps on and starts pulling at my arm hairs to "clean" me. I also used to have a massice old female occellaris i called the bulldog because she would grab onto the webbing between my fingers and shake.

 

[vtecintegra]

This is a good one. I hate mounting corals more than everything else combined. Super glue sucks. It's a pain underwater because it instantly gets a skin over it, then it's brittle and often doesn't hold over time.

 

[reacclimating 2 the hobby]

I don't like going in my tank for any reason, but this can be frustrating. Although since mixing the epoxy and glue came to fruitition more, it's not as bad for me. The part that bothers me is the 1000 questions in my head when I go to bed. Are they in the right spot? Too much flow? Too little flow? How's my light? Are they strong enough? blah blah lol

I also have a smaller tank.