New Frags - Mounting-How-To

[Anonymous]

I placed an order with Atlantis Aquarium and will be picking up my frags tomorrow morning from FedEx.

I am trying to decide how to mount the frags when I get them (they are all SPS). Should I glue them directly to the rockwork or should I mount them onto small rocks and position the small rocks where I want them in my aquascaping?

The downside to mounting them on small rocks is that my large Sailfin tang may very well knock a small rock so that it went tumbling down my aquascaping. The downside to mounting it directly onto the rockwork is that it will be much harder to change the location once I mount them... but these are going to be showpiece corals, so I'm pretty sure I know where I want them.

Thanks for any advice. Normally I don't give too much thought to mounting corals, but I have never really paid so much for such small pieces before, so I want to think everything through.

 

[Anonymous]

Its mostly the monti caps that I am concerned about

The bidsnests I should be able to stick anywhere

 

[Anonymous]

Well first you're going to QT or at the very least dip your new corals right??

But if it were me,I'd let them sit in the tank and heal up/get used to your water parameters before doing anything (QT works wonders here!) lets them slime up and get all their stuff out of the way. Then I'd mount to smaller rocks, and then when I was sure where I wanted them glue the rocks to the main rockwork, that way if you change your mind later you can pry off the smaller rock, this also has the advantage of being able to do all the gluing work outside and getting a nice bond and being able to glue around the edge as a "finishing" bit. Only reason I suggest this is that glue has a tendancy not to always work on the first try if I put glue then plop in the tank, so it leaves less gluee off the coral (rocks are more forgiving for getting sloppy with glue all over the place than corals ).

You'll probably get small frags of the caps anyways (not colonies) so this method also allows you to change your mind in the short term before it grows all over the place if you go "whoops I just realized this will shadow everything under it..."

 

[Anonymous]

Thats what I was thinking of doing. I have a big bucket of old live rock pieces that I could rinse off and use to mount the frags, and I could probably get pieces that would fit well into areas of the rockwork where I would like the corals long term.

I'm not going to QT the corals... and I keep going back and forth about whether to dip them. I am going to set this up as an acro-less SPS tank... so I won't need to worry much about AEFWs or Red Bugs. The only monti's that I would be worried about MEFWs are the two caps I am getting tomorrow. So I haven't decided if its worth stressing the new arrivals with a dip. Maybe I should start a poll for that question.
I had the Monti eating flatworms before on one of my old orange caps, and they were eliminated with a lugols dip. I was thinking that perhaps I'd wait and see with the new corals. The tank is practically empty as far as coral livestock.

 

[Anonymous]

Monti eatting nudibrach are fun too

But yeah that's what I do I have a bunch of old dead rock that I occasionally break of pieces as I need them for mounting, I really like one piece which has a good sized acro skeleton nice and perfect sized to poke into holes as "plugs" for frags, unfortunately it always feels like I get microscopic splinters from the thing in my finger.

 

[pwj1286]

Monti eatting nudibrach are fun too

I hate those guys! Is there anything that will eat them?
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Religion discussion

 

[Anonymous]

The yellow coris wrasses are supposed to eat them, but I don't know if they will eliminate them completely or just serve to keep them in check.