Time to Glue Some Rocks

[AydenLincoln]

I finally have an additional use for the 40 tiny tubes of nail glue (ethyl cyanoacrylate) I bought for my nails and now to glue my rocks underwater lol!

 

[blaxsun]

Good luck!

 

[Sean Clark]

I won't say that is a better use, but atleast you are using them.

 

[AydenLincoln]

I won't say that is a better use, but atleast you are using them.

I do use them for my nails too lol.

 

[Jedi1199]

If you need to buy more glue (I don't know if even 40 of those tiny tubes will be enough)

@Glue Masters offers a discount to R2R members. Gluemasters.com

 

[AydenLincoln]

If you need to buy more glue (I don't know if even 40 of those tiny tubes will be enough)

@Glue Masters offers a discount to R2R members. Gluemasters.com

I think it will it’s only 3 rocks and I have a nano tank.

 

[Jedi1199]

OK that's right. I remember now, I was thinking you had a 75g build going.

 

[ZombieEngineer]

Glue alone will not hold well long term. It is brittle, the surface tension cures the outside instantly and the bond is extremely easy to break.

You want the Glue - 2 part epoxy - Glue sandwich method if this needs to be done underwater.

If you're doing dry rock, you can do live rock powder and "tac weld" with extra thin superglue by covering the powder with Glue.

 

[AydenLincoln]

Glue alone will not hold well long term. It is brittle, the surface tension cures the outside instantly and the bond is extremely easy to break.

You want the Glue - 2 part epoxy - Glue sandwich method if this needs to be done underwater.

If you're doing dry rock, you can do live rock powder and "tac weld" with extra thin superglue by covering the powder with Glue.

Well it’s better than now with no glue and I always know it down. I didn’t plan ahead next time.

 

[ZombieEngineer]

Well it’s better than now with no glue and I always know it down. I didn’t plan ahead next time.

It's super cheap. They have the instant ocean putty stuff for like 4 bucks at petco or overnight shopping from Amazon. I always keep a stick on hand for gluing corals that can't easily be removed from their frag plugs (allows me to blend the frag plug into the rockwork by shaping around it with putty and using piece of rock to texture it).

 

[AydenLincoln]

It's super cheap. They have the instant ocean putty stuff for like 4 bucks at petco or overnight shopping from Amazon. I always keep a stick on hand for gluing corals that can't easily be removed from their frag plugs (allows me to blend the frag plug into the rockwork by shaping around it with putty and using piece of rock to texture it).

*knock lol and I just ordered some on Amazon. Thanks!

 

[Freddy0144]

I wish I took pictures of when I did this, as we just did it last weekend, I had 200 pounds of rock (tank is 225), I found some good stable bottom pieces that were not wobbly and if they were I used my tile cutter to fix that. We set everything with thick superglue. Then let it sit for 24 hours, then we applied Marco E400 to all of the joints and let it sit for 24 hours. I found that the best pieces were fist or softball sized for making hanging ledges and such. For the super glue part I used accelerator which worked wonders for getting the glue to set quickly, I would recover the joint after it set trying to get the glue into all of the cracks were it was possible for the two parts to bond.

 

[ZombieEngineer]

I wish I took pictures of when I did this, as we just did it last weekend, I had 200 pounds of rock (tank is 225), I found some good stable bottom pieces that were not wobbly and if they were I used my tile cutter to fix that. We set everything with thick superglue. Then let it sit for 24 hours, then we applied Marco E400 to all of the joints and let it sit for 24 hours. I found that the best pieces were fist or softball sized for making hanging ledges and such. For the super glue part I used accelerator which worked wonders for getting the glue to set quickly, I would recover the joint after it set trying to get the glue into all of the cracks were it was possible for the two parts to bond.

I did the same thing recently but used 2 part epoxy on the base joints that will support the bulk of the weight and then "tac-welded" by putting crushed up rock power across a joint and putting instaset super thin superglue on top of it. Cures into a set mortar in 10 seconds. I built this (my very first attempt with this method) in 3 hours including breaking up rocks into a Tupperware full of powder.

 

[Freddy0144]

I did the same thing recently but used 2 part epoxy on the base joints that will support the bulk of the weight and then "tac-welded" by putting crushed up rock power across a joint and putting instaset super thin superglue on top of it. Cures into a set mortar in 10 seconds. I built this (my very first attempt with this method) in 3 hours including breaking up rocks into a Tupperware full of powder.

We spent a week putting ours together, I was not in a hurry and did a little building each night. The main thing that made me go slow is I have been working like crazy and only had a little time each night which proved to be a benefit.

Some of the depth and shapes were captured here, but the picture does it no justice.