Glue rocks together or not?

O'l Salty · Mar 3, 2018

I have never glued my rocks together. I have rearranged them many times and I've had to remove them to clean algae. I have never glued my corals to the rocks they are just mounted on plugs and wedged into the rocks. I'm tired of seeing them and want to start mounting them directly to the rock. The rock work is stable should I try to glue the rock together before mounting frags?

NowGlazeIT · Mar 3, 2018

I liked having loose rock work in my small tank for awhile but on a bigger tank I used super glue and acrylic rods to attach my rock work to a specific aquascape.

Daltrey · Mar 3, 2018

I use acrylic rods also. Easy enough if you ever decide to change up your aquascape.

XNavyDiver · Mar 3, 2018

O'l Salty said:
I have never glued my rocks together. I have rearranged them many times and I've had to remove them to clean algae. I have never glued my corals to the rocks they are just mounted on plugs and wedged into the rocks. I'm tired of seeing them and want to start mounting them directly to the rock. The rock work is stable should I try to glue the rock together before mounting frags?

I never glued my rock work together, but over time the coralline algae have welded quite a few together.

Dsnakes · Mar 3, 2018

Daltrey said:
I use acrylic rods also. Easy enough if you ever decide to change up your aquascape.

Do you glue them with the rods or just use them like a dowel in furniture an set them together? Drilled hole in each piece?

Daltrey · Mar 3, 2018

Dsnakes said:
Do you glue them with the rods or just use them like a dowel in furniture an set them together? Drilled hole in each piece?

I stack them first and get them to fit just like you would without using the rods. Then I just unstack and drill each piece with a long masonry bit and fit back together with the rods being on the inside. I have some two fishies epoxy to cover any rods that might show but most you can’t see. The rocks themselves are not glued together so I can still take them apart. I had to take the whole right side apart to get to a dispar anthia recently and then after I got him I just restacked the rocks. I picked up grey rods in 4 feet lengths from a tractor supply store that is used for electric fences so it blends in well with the grey rock already.

There are probably 12 rods ran through out my rockwork in this video. If you look real close you may be able to see one or two that I still need to cover with the two fishies epoxy.

Dsnakes · Mar 3, 2018

Daltrey said:
I stack them first and get them to fit just like you would without using the rods. Then I just unstack and drill each piece with a long masonry bit and fit back together with the rods being on the inside. I have some two fishies epoxy to cover any rods that might show but most you can’t see. The rocks themselves are not glued together so I can still take them apart. I had to take the whole right side apart to get to a dispar anthia recently and then after I got him I just restacked the rocks. I picked up grey rods in 4 feet lengths from a tractor supply store that is used for electric fences so it blends in well with the grey rock already.

There are probably 12 rods ran through out my rockwork in this video. If you look real close you may be able to see one or two that I still need to cover with the two fishies epoxy.

Thank you! That is good info.

Richard the Reefer · Mar 3, 2018

My islands I will glue. I like having islands instead of one giant piece. Easy moving around, and you can keep coral species separated!! The possibilities are sick too!

GQuinn · Mar 3, 2018

I arrange the rocks how I want them. I then use a little reef epoxy and super glue gel in the area the rocks meet just to keep them stable. This way I can seperate them if necessary. I used to just stack them until I had a cave in on one end.

O'l Salty · Mar 3, 2018

I recently made a bridge and glued it together as one piece. It's just sitting on each pile of rock but it's very stable. I don't really want to glue it together with each pile of rock.

Kayotic5011 · Mar 3, 2018

This is held together with epoxy, I have no plans on taking it apart lol...The rocks on the left are not epoxyed only the tall purple rocks with the micromussa and Red Gracilaria macro alga.