Which Super Glue should I use to attach coral cuttings? Plus, advice on making live rock and live sand.
Tom,
I just wanted to take some time to thank you for all of your great advice. After three years of bad advice and disappointment I am finally happy with my reef tank and I owe it all to you. On the pictures I wrote down in order and on the first one that's all my tank use to be was dead rock with the one piece of pearl bubble and that was it. I stopped buying coral because they all died in a couple of days. Now every chance I get, I buy something (they live now). And the tang and clown fish, I have had from the beginning. Now the next thing is making some rock, or do you think I would be better off to buy just aragonite and seed it with some of my live rock and the Grunge? Also going to start some farming with some polyps and mushrooms. I was told that I could use any kind of super glue gel. Is this right, or should I just get some of the Super Reef Glue from GARF?
Thank you,
Scott Crossman
Scott,
I'm glad you're happy with your reef aquarium now! Do watch out for the temptation to buy every coral out there. I'd mainly just stick with the really good hardy stuff for now, and learn to farm/garden/propagate at least some of them for the time being. It sounds like you are ready to start making cuttings of corals now. Coral reef gardening is a great hobby! Even though corals are technically animals, they have plant characteristics too. Because of this, I often think of them in the following way: Plant a coral, grow a coral and harvest a coral to grow more corals... But the really neat thing about these corals we keep and grow in our reef aquariums is that they are our pets too! Make sure the corals you buy are in good condition and thriving. I often like to let them spend some time in the store so I can observe them before buying. I especially do this with some of the stony corals, for the best survival rate with the ones I buy.
First, lets look at your live rock making question. No need to buy any more Grunge to seed base rocks that you want to grow into live rock. You CAN use the live rocks in your tank already to do all the seeding of coralline algae, bacteria, worms and other micro fauna and invertebrates. If you want more diversity than you already have, then pick up a couple more small good quality live rocks from alternate seas/oceans to provide diversity. Just your existing live rock alone can provide the "seed cultures" to slowly turn your new base rock and new aragonite sand into live rock and live sand after you add them to your tank and allow time for growth. You can grow a nice tank with just some seed rock from one area though, and no live sand starter culture at all.
Using aragonite rock is fine for making your own live rock. Aragonite rock is found in some areas from old reefs now above sea level. A lot of this "aragonite" rock has actually changed to calcite which does dissolve as much as real aragonite to add calcium and buffer your tank. This is not so important for your base rock even though I feel it IS very important to use real aragonite sand for your substrate. I've used rocks such as calcite, aragonite, cement and others for making live rock. Perhaps the easiest rocks to find for this are CaribSea's boxed Reef Rocks which are calcite (formerly aragonite) from old reefs which are now above sea level. These dry Reef Rocks are now becoming easy to find and great for growing or culturing some of your own live rock. Smaller pieces can also be very nice for attaching new coral cuttings too. You can also make your own small rocks or "cookies" from cement to attach new coral cuttings too.
Making your own cement rocks has its advantages including the low cost. If you want to start growing live rocks today, you might want to use the CaribSea Reef Rocks or other rocks instead of making cement rocks. If you have plenty of time and patience and are in no hurry, you might want to make and cure your own cement reef rocks for growing some of your own live rock. Be sure to read the article on my web site,
ABOVE: Valerie Miller's tank-raised "xenia forest", shown about 6 months before this article was written. It has GROWN since this picture! There are four types of xenia shown above in her 75-gallon reef tank. Also note: The large concrete rock is kept nearly clean of coralline algae, looking dull gray-green. Other rocks are lacking in really good coralline growth too, a classic sign that certain hermit crabs are present which eat more coralline than you might like them to. Coralline would normally be quite obvious and starting to flourish on new concrete rock by the end of two months in a reef tank like this rock has been. The other tank-raised rocks are a year old. Coralline growth is still somewhat lacking, even with just a modest number of Mexican red leg blue spot hermit crabs present (C. digueti) which are cleaning the rock of alga, including coralline algae. In the past six months the number of hermits has decreased due to natural die-off and cannibalism. The pink, mauve and purple coralline algae is growing better now. In another test I performed, I put two small uncured concrete rocks in two HANDY Reef tanks with identical dosing and care. One tank had a very modest number of C. digueti hermit crabs in it and the other tank had none. The concrete rock in the tank with none of these hermits became almost totally covered in coralline on top and sides within just 2.5 months! The new concrete rock in the other tank, with C. digueti hermits, was still struggling to grow coralline algae, with very little coverage of coralline algae even after 6 months! The gray concrete changed colors, to a dominant gray-green look, like the picture above. The C. digueti hermits tend to keep new rocks cleaned of coralline algae the best. Another interesting observation was made. As expected and often observed elsewhere the coralline growing on the glass of the tank with C. digueti hermits was slightly less dense than in the tank without these hermits which had much more coralline already growing everywhere since there were no coralline "preditors" present. Remember, the more coralline in a tank the faster it spreads to new rocks and the glass. The coralline growing on the glass of the tank with the hermits eventually grew so thick that the hermits were finally able to climb the coralline covered glass and start stripping it too! All of this should come as no surprise since these hermits have been extensively observed to eat coralline algae in addition to their diet of snails and even coral polyps. They are omnivores of course and this should also be no surprise. In live rock farming it is critical to NOT include certain hermit crabs which eat coralline algae like candy. Claims to the contrary should be a red flag as to the honesty or knowledge of such claimants.
Now a few details on using super glue (cyanoacrylate or CA glue) for attaching coral cuttings to rocks. It seems to be completely non-toxic to reef aquariums since some people have used a LOT of it in their reef aquariums with no negative effects at all. Super glue is also used on some human and animal wounds - yes, it's that safe. You can use any super glue to attach coral cuttings, even super glue from Wal-Mart . I use various super glues sometimes, but the thicker ones (super glue GELS) are the best and easiest to use. Super Reef Gel is the very thickest one and does not bubble when you put it in water. People were using regular runny super glue long before GARF was around. Mark Barnes and Larry Read (former GARF associates) experimented super glue gels also. They found these to be the best and shared this information with GARF and others. Although Mark Barnes and Larry Read weren't the first to use super glue for coral propagation either, they wrote a report on their own original super glue research and on the comparisons of the effectiveness of many of the super glue gels too. Mark Barnes in Boise, Idaho is the one who found the really thick super glue that he now sells and that GARF also uses now. Mark now markets this thickest super glue gel as Super Reef Gel. It is not only easier to use than other super glues, but much easier to use than the underwater epoxies and looks much better too (easier to hide)! Mark's E-mail is ReefGel@aol.com
The medium and large tubes (all that they have available) might be a bit too much if you are only going to make a couple of coral cuttings. If you don't use the glue within a short time the spout clogs. But, you can remedy this if you know how to work with it. Using super glues is somewhat technique oriented. Mark has found many of the best techniques that others use now. Let's say that you are going to make a bunch of cuttings today and you use half of a big tube of the Super Reef Gel and won't be making anymore cuttings for another couple of months, but you don't want the opening of the tube to clog meantime. All you have to do is throw away the cap to the Super Reef Gel and squeeze a small glob of the thick gel out of the end of the tube and stick this in water to harden the outer surface of the glob of glue right on to the end of the tube. It will then finish curing and the tube of glue is sealed and protected for later use. All you have to do now, in a couple months, when you want to use it again is take the handle of a butter knife and whack this hardened glob of super glue and it will crack off of the end of the tube, leaving it open so you can squeeze glue out again! Simple! These tubes are the sizes of small and large toothpaste tubes and have almost equally wide openings. Most fairly serious coral propagators agree that these larger size tubes are more convenient to use when making a lot of cuttings than using LOTS of the tiny tubes from stores.
The price on the tiny (normal size) super glue tubes at Wal-Mart has dropped in the last year or so. The one in the purple tube by Loctite, QuickTite Super Glue Gel, is the thickest I've found at Wal-Mart. It works pretty well. The next thickest type that I've seen there is the Scotch 3M Super Glue Gel which works fairly well for me (others have complained that it isn't thick enough for them). The gel they often carry in the gold tubes, Kwik-Fix Super Glue Gel, costs about $1.68 for a triple pack and is the cheapest gel I've found, but it has a lot of air in the puffed up tubes and is even a bit thinner than the Scotch 3M brand. I can still get it to work fairly well for me, usually. Two of the other very thick brands that you might find at other stores or even hobby or office supply stores are the white and green tubes of Thick Gel Super Glue (actually made by Super Glue Corp.) and Ross Super Glue Gel. It just takes a little practice to get used to working with super glues, especially the not-so-thick ones.
Don't be surprised when some corals just won't attach directly to super glues. Super glue gels do not stick to everything. It does not hold things very long if they are slimy, like many corals. Some sarcophyton and sinularia can stick to it on the rougher parts of their skin or on the internal calcium spicules sticking out of the end of a new cutting. The under side of some sarcophyton coral disks are rough and can stick better to the glue. I tested one of my more slimy sarcophyton corals with Super Reef Gel after failing to attach it to rocks with other gels. 21 out of 21 of these cuttings STILL came unglued within a couple of days since this particular sarcophyton was so slimy on both sides. I had cut the whole outer 1" of the disk off of a sarcophyton that had grown large, and then I cut that ring into 21 squares (over an inch square) to make cuttings from. After they all failed to stay glued in place, I ended up letting them attach on their own laying to gravel and smaller rocks at the bottom of the reef tank in a quiet area where they wouldn't get whisked away while attaching. After this attachment I then glued the gravel naturally attached to the cuttings to larger rocks. Rock-to-rock gluing is the easiest.
For those hard-to-glue (or impossible-to-glue) cuttings like some sarcophyton, sinularia, most cladiella and actinodiscus, you can use an easier method to attach them, but it still involves super glue in the end process. For these corals I would recommend first using the gravel bowl/gravel bed method of attachment. This is like the above description for the slimy sarcophyton attachment. Very often this old easy methods of making cuttings is forgotten. A small piece of any soft coral or mushroom anemone will attach to gravel (small rocks, aragonite sand, chips or crushed coral) if left sitting on it undisturbed for about a week or two, but sometimes faster or slower. Try this first and then glue the gravel attached to the coral cuttings onto the rocks where you want these cuttings to grow. The bowl will help keep them in place on the gravel and from getting swept away in the water current - if it isn't very strong.
Once again, rock to rock gluing IS easiest! Out-of-water gluing is easier than underwater gluing. Under water gluing isn't too hard, but takes a little practice to get the hang of it. For out-of- water gluing you can blot most of the water off of the rubble/sand that is newly attached to the coral cutting and then apply some super glue gel to this sand/rubble. Then take the rock out of the tank that you are going to attach this cutting to and blot it somewhat dry just on the spot where you want to glue the gravel attached cutting too and then stick the cutting with gravel. Next, glue the attached gravel onto this slightly dried (still damp) spot on the rock. If needed, remove any slimy scum from this live rock in the spot where you expect the glue to stick. After gluing them together like this, put them in the tank and the water will harden the outer part of the exposed super glue to help bond it faster. Don't get glue on actinodiscus (mushroom anemones) when you glue the attached gravel to rocks. Actinodiscus seem to hate super glue and often attach from the gravel also if you get super glue on them. Actinodiscus also hate being restricted or tied down by other means of attachment, so the gravel bowl/bed seems to work best with them. They can just lay there undisturbed until they attach to the gravel. I have less losses to protozoan (slime) attacks while attaching them if I don't restrict them (ie: toothpicks, rubber bands, fishing line, netting).
Underwater rock-to-rock gluing is fairly easy, but it can be just a little tricky at first since a dab or glob of glue forms a semi-hardened shell around it quite quickly when you put it under water - water cures it. Put a good sized glob (about the size of a pencil eraser) of the gel on the mostly dried surface of the rock or coral you are going to glue under water. Then you quickly dunk it in your reef aquarium and push it in place on the rock you want it glued to. Now you have to twist and turn the rock or coral as you push it against the other rock you are gluing it to in order to get the newly semi-hardened outer glue shell to break open and let the inner glue ooze out and attach onto the underwater rock as you squish it around. This squished out glue then starts hardening too. You might even pull the cutting back away from the rock just a little to stretch the newly attached glue (twist, turn, pull) to help it set up and to see if it really is firmly attached to the rock. The same techniques apply to gluing SPS corals under water. SPS corals are some of the simplest corals to make cuttings of.
Forget about gluing cladiella, mushroom anemones, xenia and other very slick coral pieces directly to rocks. Either use the gravel bowl first or there are other tricks for them also. You can sew them to rocks with fishing line, use rubber bands to hold some coral cuttings in place while they attach to a rock. These aren't the only methods of reef gardening (attaching new coral cuttings), but they are some of the most common methods that I like to use.
Tanks-
Tom Miller
"Complete Cookbook for Making Live Rock from Cement and other Land Based Rocks."
This article has information on several types of rocks that can be used and also details on how to make very cheap cement reef rocks and properly cure them and test for high pH to avoid losses in your tanks. Cement rocks for aquarium and reef aquarium use has been around for decades, well, actually much much longer than that! Some of the sources copying this old "lost" art have forgotten to fully research the techniques and have not given good advise on curing these rocks since cement produces very high pH compounds from its curing process, and then this has to be soaked out of your new cement reef rocks as they cure. Proper curing of cement rocks is VERY important, and easy! It just takes TIME. You ought to make a batch of cement rocks in some of the shapes and sizes that you've always wanted but never could find. Getting the sizes and shapes of rocks that you want and need at less than 10 cents a lb - you can hardly go wrong!
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