How to deal with a miniscule Xenia frag?

Petrichor

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Tl;DR - How do you glue/restrain a xenia frag that is smaller than a pencil eraser?

Long story time: I bought a blue xenia frag online as it's one of my favorite corals. It arrived very small, honestly smaller than a pencil eraser, and was entirely retracted and detached from the frag plug, so I super glued it back onto the plug and acclimated it to my tank. It detached again and I "lost" it in the tank for about 6 hours before my SO found it sitting on the sand. I glued it to the plug, again, and put the plug in a floating breeder tank I have to hopefully keep the xenia from floating off if the frag detached again. Well...it detached and slipped out of the breeder (I assume through the bottom holes for fry) and I could not find it at all. I resigned myself to having wasted the money and moved on.

Today, about two weeks later, I'm doing a cleaning with a turkey baster (getting sand off my rocks) and with a squirt out comes my xenia frag from a particularly porous rock! I nab it with the turkey baster and attempt to glue it to the frag plug for the third time. It lasted maybe 2 hours before popping off due to the tiny amount of current that gets into the breeder.

So right now I have this itty bitty xenia bit in my floating breeder tank with the bottom of the breeder covered in filter pad to prevent it from slipping out the bottom slots (it's the little clump left of the frag plug in the picture).

How on earth do I get this frag to stay in one spot without losing it to the slightest current?! I really want to save this coral, but glue isn't working, and I don't think I have enough mass to try the fishing line or rubber band method.

IMG_20191020_155733.jpg
 

andrewkw

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I can't even see it in your picture, but smaller than a pencil eraser what is it 1 polyp?

What I suggest you do is forget about gluing it. Take a water bottle and cut off the top and place it in there along with some rubble. This way it won't blow around and get lost. Absolute worst case (besides dying) it attaches to the water bottle and when it grows a bit you can cut it along with a tiny piece of plastic off and glue the plastic to a plug.
 
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Petrichor

Petrichor

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I can't even see it in your picture, but smaller than a pencil eraser what is it 1 polyp?

What I suggest you do is forget about gluing it. Take a water bottle and cut off the top and place it in there along with some rubble. This way it won't blow around and get lost. Absolute worst case (besides dying) it attaches to the water bottle and when it grows a bit you can cut it along with a tiny piece of plastic off and glue the plastic to a plug.


I circled it in the picture. I THINK it's 4-5 very small polyps, but it's hard for me to see and hard for my camera to focus on. I know there are some little tendrils on it though which you can kinda make out on the bottom right of the bit.

IMG_20191020_155733.jpg



I will try the water bottle idea, thanks! Would I need to drill any small holes for ventilation and current?
 

DanConnor

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Any small Tupperware type container will work for this to protect it from current while it settles. I have made screen tops, but yours sounds so small that at tall bottle might work better. No need for holes if the top is cut off.
 

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