Glue Recommendations... Messed Up And Need to Glue Aquascape in Tank

[CayoHueso]

Hi,

Looking for Super Glue recommendations. I messed up and just stacked my rock without glueing or epoxying. Tanks already up and running with a clown inside. So I need a glue I can use and set underwater. Just want to add that piece of mind before I add any inverts that might cause the rock to shift and fall. The BRS extra thick was my first thought, but it seems to have some poor reviews. Same with Coral Glue. Seems all the glues on BRS have lots of 1 star reviews. Figure I'll glue a piece at a time over the next couple of water changes so I'm not adding too much glue into the tank at once. Any recommendations/experience? Thanks!

 

[shakacuz]

you can still apply epoxy underwater. try that?

 

[CayoHueso]

you can still apply epoxy underwater. try that?

Tried AquaStik. It just fell off 24 hours later. And looked really bad too.

 

[Jmp998]

I have not had good experience with super glue on wet rock. It will work to hold a frag or something, but it does not seem to hold strong enough for rock structure in my experience. Maybe there is a trick I missed.

Depending on exactly what you are trying to do, you might be able to add some stability with hidden zip ties or something. Or take out one section of rock at a time to glue so that your tank stays running/cycled and is just missing some rock work.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Hi,

Looking for Super Glue recommendations. I messed up and just stacked my rock without glueing or epoxying. Tanks already up and running with a clown inside. So I need a glue I can use and set underwater. Just want to add that piece of mind before I add any inverts that might cause the rock to shift and fall. The BRS extra thick was my first thought, but it seems to have some poor reviews. Same with Coral Glue. Seems all the glues on BRS have lots of 1 star reviews. Figure I'll glue a piece at a time over the next couple of water changes so I'm not adding too much glue into the tank at once. Any recommendations/experience? Thanks!

I prefer putty ( I use holdfast) but gel super glue amd BRS gel glue are excellent also

 

[EricR]

Unless you're dead set (cosmetically) on your rock features being exactly like you want them, I'd lean towards some slight shifting and moving/turning connecting pieces to get a stable feel.
Gravity and positioning is your best friend, if you can just start tweaking stuff a bit in the tank first so top-down force gets reasonable contact with widening base below so it feels like an earthquake won't topple it, that's what I'd do.
*just be prepared for the possibility that you could make it worse so you have to commit to just working with it until you get to a point where you're satisfied

Then if you have minor concerns:
-- Super Glue (CA) is good for adhesion as long as there's a true contact segment with some minor gap -- works underwater fine but you don't want to rely on a large gap with any torsional force in terms of structural strength
-- For epoxy, I like the IO HoldFast mentioned in last post (really just 'cause it's cheap and works) -- epoxy has more strength than super glue but not as adhesive -- you kinda wanna think about it as clay that you want to form into a shape that will grab around connecting parts of your rock so when it's cured it will be a physical hold of the sections it's keeping together.
***and you can still do glue/epoxy/glue sandwich like people do with frag plugs as long as you keep in mind that the epoxy should handle the structural bulk and glue just helps it stick

 

[CayoHueso]

Luckily it's a small tank (20 Gallon AIO). And I used large pieces of rock, and fit them together just as EricR recommended. I did also make another rookie mistake and set the rocks on top of the sand bed. But since they are large pieces and not stacked together like jenga pieces I think I should be okay. I do plan on adding nassarius snails and sand sifting goby eventually. Since the tank is up and running and I've already got live stock I figure it's better just to secure with epoxy and glue and not go digging up the sand bed. I also sort of nestled them into the sand rather just sitting on top. I think I'm going to go with EricR's recommendation of glue/epoxy/glue sandwich, and Tunze's Coral Gum Instant seems to have good reviews. It matches the Coraline color of the rocks and seems to set quickly under water.

The area in red is my main concern. The other yellow areas are just over kill for piece of mind and prevent a trochus from getting in there and acting like a wedge.

 

[Tired]

If you take some frag putty, put superglue gel on either side of the chunk, and sandwich it between the rocks, that should hold well. The superglue gel provides the gluing force, the frag putty molds into the proper shape to fit the rocks.

My suggestion would be to just remove those two pieces of rock, glue them, let them set, and put them back in when there's no risk of the fish biting the glue. The rest of the joints should be fine.

 

[TX_REEF]

If you take some frag putty, put superglue gel on either side of the chunk, and sandwich it between the rocks, that should hold well. The superglue gel provides the gluing force, the frag putty molds into the proper shape to fit the rocks.

My suggestion would be to just remove those two pieces of rock, glue them, let them set, and put them back in when there's no risk of the fish biting the glue. The rest of the joints should be fine.

Agreed on this! use balls of putty with a glob of superglue on each portion that will contact rock. this will set underwater as well.

 

[CayoHueso]

If you take some frag putty, put superglue gel on either side of the chunk, and sandwich it between the rocks, that should hold well. The superglue gel provides the gluing force, the frag putty molds into the proper shape to fit the rocks.

My suggestion would be to just remove those two pieces of rock, glue them, let them set, and put them back in when there's no risk of the fish biting the glue. The rest of the joints should be fine.

Do you think I should worry about snails getting under the cracks between the rocks in the other (yellow) joints? The yellow joints don't really seem like toppling over points because I used such wide rocks flat on the bottom as bases, and the rocks are large and fit together nicely. But there is rooms for a shell to get under them possibly. Is trochus strong enough to left rocks like that? I watched a BRS video saying they have a strong foot.

 

[twentyleagues]

I like the putty and gel mix. Gluemasters superglue is great. I used their ultra thin to build my scape, you would want to use their thick or gel.

 

[The_Paradox]

If you’re worried about them then fix them in place. Since it’s in tank I would not bother with glue. I use J-B Weld water weld when I need it to set it up in the tank. It’s dirt cheap and sold everywhere. When you use it just wrap around edges you want to secure. Once it sets up it will mechanically lock rocks in place.