Mounting Frags

[Phyl]

I'm full of questions today, so forgive me

What have you found to be the best way, products, etc to mount frags? Specifically what size piece of rock do you mount them to? What kind of "glue" do you use? How long are they out of the water for? How fast after gluing do you get them back into the tank? How dry is the coral? The rock?

[makana]

i use different techniques for different species. i use the smallest piece of rock or shell or substrate available (i often use crushed coral chunks from the sandbed) as big pieces of rock tend to damage frags during transport.
i keep the out of the water AS LITTLE AS POSSIBLE. i have used krazy glue brand superglue and that sucks because it gets RUNNY when its wet. SALLY JO's REEF GLUE from GARF.COM is the #1 IMO. check it OUT.
i dry the base of the coral (where im gluing it down) and the rock/chunk in the part im gluing too. i dry them with all natural, bleach-free paper towels. OH YEAH, I WAER RUBBER GLOVES THE WHOLE TIME TOO!

hope this helps

[Phyl]

Whoah. I think I'd seen GARF.ORG "in the beginning" (LOL. Seems funny to distinguish that) but wasn't near ready for that amount of information. Now that I am, I'm in awe. Thanks for directing me back there. I certainly needed the reminder!

[makana]

garf is great! they are down to earth people who are very natural-reef-concious and they have a ton of knowledge about systems, fragging, and reef-keeping in general.
glad to help

[Bearfan]

I use bridal veil for a lot of things that slime (softies).

[makana]

how do you frag your zoos/palys? do you use veil or glue? i find glue works fine for these softies.
i have never used veil b/c i never have any around but i think when i frag my ricordia again i will try it this way. do you use veil for the xenia? i havent ever fragged my xenia yet...
TIA

[bound_for_obx]

I used bridal veil for mounting xenia. It worked really well. Just be carful to remove the veil before the xenia starts to grow thru it.

[makana]

how long did it take for the xenia to mount?
TIA

[Bearfan]

I leave the veil for 2 weeks with no disturbance on Xenia and Ricordia.

[bound_for_obx]

I noticed that the Xenia was starting to grow thru the veil after maybe a week or so. When I gently tried to pull the veil away from the Xenia the Xenia was attached to the rock. I imagine that frags will have different rates of attachment. Keep your eyes on them and remove the veil when you think its safe.

[makana]

i am an avid fan of letting frags attatch themselves. then again i am mainly into softies so this approach works well. i just got a Xenia elongata frag and a Cladiella sp. frag and they attatched themselves to my LR within a weekend!
the xenia looks great but the colt is slowly acclimating - lookin better every day, every time i look!