Help mounting coral

Engloid · May 6, 2012

I have some sort of brain coral. The skeleton base is about 2.5" diameter, and when it's happy, the flesh swells up to about 4.5". The problem is that this thing is really happy about a foot from the surface, and doesn't even swell up good on the sand. Even when I put it on the sand, my coris wrasse flips it over. When I put it up on the rockwork, and no matter where it is, he eventually figures out how to flip it off the rocks and into the sand. I'm hoping he doesn't ever knock it down INTO the rocks where I cant get it.

how can I mount a coral that has a flat bottom like this?

I have a favia that I just mounted by drilling a hole in the bottom, put a stainless screw in and sunk it into some clay. Not sure if it will stand up over time or not. I can't do that with this brain coral because it's too fleshy on top to push it down and sink the screw into some clay.

macclellan · May 6, 2012

use marine epoxy and put it on a rock big enough that the wrasse can't flip it. i can give you a snip of the stuff if you don't have any.
then put it wherever in the tank makes it happiest.

gmoney243 · May 6, 2012

U can get epoxy puty at your local hardware store look for cures in water. The puty u can form over any surfaces to make frag stick. I use this more than super glue gel for mounting frags

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k2parkstar · May 6, 2012

I use the epoxy as well. You can get it at any LFS, or lowes, home depot etc. I buy the stuff at lowes for about 5$ on the back it says safe for aquariums. What I do is cut off 2 pieces and work the putty until the epoxy mixes, then I use some super glue and work that onto the rock. I take the other piece and glue it to the frag plug. Then put glue on the remaining side of epoxy and place in the tank on your epoxy on the rock. It's very sturdy, but if you ever need to remove it it's pretty easy because you just need a little pressure to break the super glue bond.

Engloid · May 6, 2012

The epoxy clay won't work. You can't push down on the fleshy top of the coral to get it to stick.. and the bottom part is smooth. It's too big to use superglue on too. Sorry, I meant to mention that in my original post.

revhtree · May 6, 2012

You can get aquamend from homedepot that will work great. Your skimmer will go crazy for a couple days though.

EvilMel · May 9, 2012

Dave...what's aquamend?

cee · May 9, 2012

Underwater curable epoxy

Engloid · May 9, 2012

I will look into the epoxy. I guess it's a 2 part gel like stuff that you mix or what?

macclellan · May 10, 2012

aquamend is a brand name of 2-part epoxy already mentioned. i doubt pushing down on it once to place the coral is as bad for it as getting knocked off the rocks, flipped, etc.