Transferring corals to displays ?

[Reef Quest 11]

I have a fairly new tank, about a month old now.

I have a handful of soft corals in, zoas and mushrooms.

My real question is now I have all these corals all over my rock work and they are just posted up on frags. I assume at some point, some/most/all(?) Should be removed from the frag and permanently attached to the rock work?

I imagine some will grow over. My gsp is have on the frag on the sandbed and he seems to be getting ready to start growing over and keeping him on the frag seems like a good idea to be able to easily trim/keep him contained.

However I have some tiny zoas that are on a frag that is not really 'naturally' placed on the rock work and would probably not grow off onto the rock work well without it being awkward.

Is this what the frag shelves are for? Let something get acclimated to the tank and get bigger before removing from the plug and permanently gluing to the live rock?

I do have a singular tiny blue mushroom coral i placed directly on the live rock and honestly it kind of freaked me out. Directly handling the coral worries me I am hurting the coral and or may drop or lose them in the display.

Any videos/tricks/knowledge on this would be greatly appreciated. I feel way over my head on this and vocalizing it kind of makes it sound like pretty basic knowledge that a reefer should have. Please share your wisdom!

 

[Reef Quest 11]

Oh! To add, I have introduced turbo snails and honestly they scare the **** out of me. Im worried about them zooming over the live rock and waking up one morning to all the corals face down in the sand bed.

Should I be gluing the frags to the live rock as well? REALLY uncertain on best practices here.

 

[Fish Fan]

I like to glue new frags down with only some super glue gel. The super glue gel holds decently to keep the frag in place, but not so well that I can't easily break it off to relocate it.

Once you've got it where you like it, you can make it more permanent by using reef safe epoxy or a combination of super glue and epoxy.

This video may help:
https://www.bulkreefsupply.com/cont...KWMpUMe9mrjdtEY8NlZyC_lQ0djW3L3oVr_4LVAIgI-tL

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

I try to remove the coral from the frag plug if I can, and just glue down the coral... and yes corals should be glued down. Sometimes its not possible to remove the coral from the frag plug, in which case I cut the stem off the plug and glue the disk on the rocks. Same as above I use super glue gel.

 

[Reef Quest 11]

I like to glue new frags down with only some super glue gel. The super glue gel holds decently to keep the frag in place, but not so well that I can't easily break it off to relocate it.

Once you've got it where you like it, you can make it more permanent by using reef safe epoxy or a combination of super glue and epoxy.

This video may help:
https://www.bulkreefsupply.com/cont...KWMpUMe9mrjdtEY8NlZyC_lQ0djW3L3oVr_4LVAIgI-tL

Are you gluing the coral frag, or the frag plug?

If the actual coral, how are you removing the coral from the frag?

 

[Reef Quest 11]

I try to remove the coral from the frag plug if I can, and just glue down the coral... and yes corals should be glued down. Sometimes its not possible to remove the coral from the frag plug, in which case I cut the stem off the plug and glue the disk on the rocks. Same as above I use super glue gel.

How do you determine if you can or cant remoce the coral from the frag plug?

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

Thats difficult to answer lol..... One way is if the coral is newly glued to the frag plug, usually you can pop it off with a butter knife or something. If the coral has grown out over onto the frag plug, then usually it can't be done.

Some corals such as euphyllia or duncans. etc... I wouldn't do it, as you can easily damage the skeletal stem and likely lose the coral. Same with meatier or fleshier corals, you wouldn't want to damage the fleshy polyps by mistake.

Feel free to post some pics and then you can get more direct suggestions.

 

[Fish Fan]

Are you gluing the coral frag, or the frag plug?

If the actual coral, how are you removing the coral from the frag?

I was talking about gluing down a plug, but I also try to take off as much (to all) of the plug if possible. This is easier on some corals than others. You can use bone cutters to clip away at a plug where you cannot easily remove the whole corals. At the least, I try to make the plug seem more natural rather than a perfect disc sitting in the tank for six months

 

[ChrisPchef]

Jake Adams/Reebuilders will have the answer to any question you have.

Rest in paradise

 

[Reef Quest 11]

Thats difficult to answer lol..... One way is if the coral is newly glued to the frag plug, usually you can pop it off with a butter knife or something. If the coral has grown out over onto the frag plug, then usually it can't be done.

Some corals such as euphyllia or duncans. etc... I wouldn't do it, as you can easily damage the skeletal stem and likely lose the coral. Same with meatier or fleshier corals, you wouldn't want to damage the fleshy polyps by mistake.

Feel free to post some pics and then you can get more direct suggestions.

I cant take pictures until this evening, but right now I only have 3 zoa frags thatd id be interested in moving. the biggest has probably time sized skirts and the smallest is probably the size of an eraser head, with 3-7 polyps. I guess im also just really worried about damaging the coral? They all seem so sensitive. When I had to manually place the mushroom coral it seemed so fragile in my hands.

I have a ricordea but he is on rock ontop of the frag so I could probably remove the rock from the frag and then just attach the rock to rock and it would look really natural.