How to re-glue/reposition large colonies??!?! HELP!

[Dowtish]

Well here is some first hand experience... I had a birdsnest colony of this size or larger that snapped off it's mount too. It never encrusted and was stuck to a small frag plug. I tried superglue, epoxy, everything else in the book and nothing worked. I tried wedging support rocks in, but it still just snapped off even after curing. In all of the attempts to get it to stick, I ended up causing the coral to start RTNing and it died from the inside out... I was able to cut frags before it fully died off and have a couple colonies re-growing in the tank now...

If I was to ever do this again, I would take a smaller rock with a good hole in it that I could use to brace the colony on. Put some epoxy on the base and super glue in the hole. Place it all together for a snug fit. Then run a zip tie through the colony in a couple places to hold the rock steady that you glued it to. Leve this for a few days to sure fully.

After curing I would then glue the smaller rock onto the main structure using a layered method of Rock -> Super Glue -> Epoxy Putty -> Super Glue -> Rock... This way you give your colony a good base rock to attach to and the ability to do more gluing to really hold the base rock to the main structure.

Just my $.02

thanks for this. I have a few pieces of rock that I could do this with. I picked up a diamond plated cutting wheel for my dremmel tool not too long ago, and this thing cuts through rock like butter. I am just going to carve out a hole for it to sit in. This will make it so much easier.

 

[jeremyblu]

peg it ther is a how to in the diy section

 

[Mr. Microscope]

Remove BN from tank
BN > super glue > epoxy > superglue > small rock
Let glue set in a few minutes
Back in QT to really harden
= BN + small rock
BN+SR > superglue > epoxy > superglue > display rock

Essential, do it in two steps. Once the BN is solidly in place on the small rock, you can then glue the small rock to the display rock and not worry about breaking it.

 

[Cooterbrown]

The easiest way is if it still has a "stem" on the bottom is to drill a 1/4-1/2 " hole in a rock and then fill the hoel with epoxy and stick it in. You can have the frag out of the water for quite a while as long as you keep it moist. Shouldn't take more than 5 minutes.

If it doesn't have a stem on it any more. Glue it to a frag plug with super glue gel then use the plug in the rock. I build fake rocks out of Portland cement an when I cast them I make an indent for the frag plug so when the coral encrusts it glues itself to the rock. And It's heavy enough it won't fall over

 

[solar]

here is a pic of it....you cant miss it

Hope you got your issue fixed.
Your tank is OMG :jaw:

 

[islander84]

Chris i had this problem back when i had large colonies :wink: the way i solved the problem was trimmed the bottom of the colony to where i had 3 or 4 (legs) and then it would support itself and i just glued all of the legs down.....

 

[Dowtish]

Thanks Solar and Gary and everyone.

I ended up taking a 4x3 inch rock that was flat on the bottom and I dremmeled out a hole for the plug to fit in. I glued and epoxied it and let it harden. Then I glued and epoxied that into the DT with another person holding it and packed epoxy all around the new base.

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[solar]

I had a idea just now. Drill a small.pilot hole throught the base and use fishing line to tie it down.

 

[ritter6788]

[video=youtube;rbh4iEKlIUw]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbh4iEKlIUw[/video]

Birdsnest would be harder to drill into but I'll bet you could work an acrylic rod through the center and into a rock. The BN would quickly attach to the rod as well and make it sturdier.