Preferred method of coral placement

[Krak-A-Pat]

Im a noob and while my tank cycles im making a wish list of corals. My question is, when I receive the coral do a majority of you keep them on their plugs and just glue them onto your scape or do you remove from the plug and place on the scape? Orrrrr do you remove from plug and glue to a bit of dry rock and then glue that to your scape? I dont know how i feel about glueing anything down, as I may want to move it in the future. How do yall do it?

 

[Lavey29]

Depends on the coral type. Some I remove, some I don't, some just cut the stem off. Even if you glue the plug down most of the time you can break it free of the rock if you need to move it without much effort.

 

[The_Paradox]

If you think you might want to move it I would leave it in the plug for sure. That gives you a couple weeks to months to decide.

 

[Krak-A-Pat]

If you think you might want to move it I would leave it in the plug for sure. That gives you a couple weeks to months to decide.

and then remove and add to a dry rock "plug"?

 

[The_Paradox]

and then remove and add to a dry rock "plug"?

After a while they grow completely around plug and onto whatever substrate.

 

[PotatoPig]

After a while they grow completely around plug and onto whatever substrate.

Do hammers and torches also do this? Or are they the exception? My impression was they only grow where the skeleton is covered by the flesh band.

Other than that - agree. Especially softies - the plug will be buried under coral soon enough.

To OP: In my experience for hard corals unless the frag has encrusted the plug you may want to remove from the plug and attach to the rockwork via water weld or similar - the plugs can be surprisingly large and inconvenient to attach to the rock without messing up placement options or sticking out like a sore thumb until they eventually get grown over.

 

[The_Paradox]

Do hammers and torches also do this? Or are they the exception? My impression was they only grow where the skeleton is covered by the flesh band.

Other than that - agree. Especially softies - the plug will be buried under coral soon enough.

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They widen out and eventually cover the plug as they gain new heads. Very similar to the way Duncans do just slower.