This is interesting... alternative for epoxy

Damon · Apr 8, 2015

I actually am upgrading this weekend and this couldn't have come at a better time. I am going to try and order some on Friday, pending your results.

But if it is possible, then, this could be a massive thing for scaping and frags!

pelagic · Apr 9, 2015

I ordered some yesterday as well, I am excited about not having to deal with the epoxy if this works.
I hate the epoxy smell. lol

Daniel@R2R · Apr 9, 2015

Following! I'm interested bc I hate epoxy. LOL It almost never works longterm.

Jlobes · Apr 10, 2015

interesting

gtbarsi · Apr 10, 2015

Damon said:
Here is someone using it for frag plugs in her system..

I am looking this up and wonder how much you'd really need to scape a tank.. Lol

It'd be nice if someone around had tried it..

It looks like she really had to press down hard, what is the risk of hurting the frag?

pickupman66 · Apr 10, 2015

Mine arrived today. YAY.. maybe ill have time to play with it this evening.

pelagic · Apr 10, 2015

ooo this post was featured on the r2r facebook, that's why we suddenly have some many people reading it. lol

Damon · Apr 10, 2015

gtbarsi said:
It looks like she really had to press down hard, what is the risk of hurting the frag?

Hmmnn. It may be her technique. Lol, all of us aren't as gentle as we probably should be. But im eagerly awaiting some feedback from the folks that ordered it before I do a big order to do a scape.

I wouldn't start with a frag myself, as it would be a way to make interesting shapes(will be upgrading the system starting tomorrow). I'm not good with epoxy and Aquariums for some reason. Though, I admit, I've only used the tlf stuff and haven't tried water weld yet.

But I look forward to hearing from the others..

pickupman66 · Apr 10, 2015

Lookie what I got.

Also got a new control board for my lumentek so it's play in the tank night

Damon · Apr 10, 2015

pickupman66 said:
Lookie what I got.

Also got a new control board for my lumentek so it's play in the tank night

Sweet! Ok, so what's the skinny? Yea or nea?

pickupman66 · Apr 10, 2015

hahaha.. had a few issues tonight so I havent touched it. Wife thought it was cool.

pickupman66 · Apr 10, 2015

Very cool stuff. 3/4 cup of water for a minute in teh microwave and pour some in. I put to much. OH well. Let it get clear and then pulled it and squeezed the air and water out. put it back to let it soften up more. Id say hotter water makes it more maleable. it is stiff like epoxy. tossed it in my tank and it DOES SINK. so I made it into a fat frag plug. super easy . I May stack a few rocks in the fuge together with it next.

pickupman66 · Apr 10, 2015

Input it in soft and it hardened up in the tank good.

It has a sort of waxy feel to it. I boiled up a cup of water and am going to erase this

Damon · Apr 10, 2015

But no foaming up the skimmer or any other issues?

pickupman66 · Apr 10, 2015

Randy Holmes-Farley · Apr 11, 2015

FWIW, Instamorph appears to be polycaprolactone, which will slowly degrade (hydrolyze) in a tank. It might even be able to grow a bacterial coating of species which can speed the degradation, like biopellets do.

I expect it is OK for a short term use (days to weeks to possibly months), but I'd be wary of a permanent reef application where failure would be an issue.

pelagic · Apr 11, 2015

I received mine as well. I played with it for a while, here's what I thought

When it's heated, it's like a chewing gum, the non-sticky one
When you apply good pressure to it, it sticks to the surface of what you are attaching to firmly. i suspect it's because the particle are small and it adhere to the surface by filling the holes on the surface. It's definitely not a self-attaching material.
It's fairly easy to shape it the way you want
The material expends a bit after you heat it from its pellet form, so you are actually getting more than the volume
Comparing to epoxy, it's definitely cheaper, not to mention you can restore it back to work-able stat in seconds, unlike the epoxy(how many of you had a the experience of having the epoxy got too hard on you? *raise hand*
no odor! yay!

Randy Holmes-Farley said:
FWIW, Instamorph appears to be polycaprolactone, which will slowly degrade (hydrolyze) in a tank. It might even be able to grow a bacterial coating of species which can speed the degradation, like biopellets do.

I expect it is OK for a short term use (days to weeks to possibly months), but I'd be wary of a permanent reef application where failure would be an issue.

my thought for this one is if we use it to glue the SPS, hopefully the SPS bone structure will cover it before it gets degraded. As for using it for aqua-scaping.. I can see the risk if it degrades too fast, hopefully, that's not the case. I can drop a small piece in my tank and weight it periodically to see how fast it gets eaten.

pickupman66 · Apr 11, 2015

Good idea pelagic.

asn · Dec 18, 2016

Any long term test results? Does it appear to still be reef safe?

pickupman66 · Dec 19, 2016

So I have not had an issue with it in my tank at all. It does allow algea growth on it. That said, for me, It did not make good rockwork glue as regular epoxy seemed to perform better.