- A glorious day to all my fellow
and future hobbyists out there.
My name is Matthew, I'm your BRS beginner guru.
This is episode 45, part B.
So in case you missed part A,
check that out before watching this video.
We're not gonna mess around today.
We're gonna jump right in
to how to put corals into your tank.
(upbeat music)
Overarching methods of putting corals in your tank.
There are so many ways to do this.
Some ways look better than others
but there is no right or wrong way.
Well, there's probably,
okay, I take that back.
There probably is a wrong way.
But let me just tell you some of the ways
that you can successfully put corals into your tank.
You can do it with a frag plug.
You can literally just take the entire frag plug,
glue that somewhere onto your aquascape and you're done.
Doesn't necessarily look the best,
but if it's encrusting coral, it'll encrust over eventually.
You can remove the coral from the frag plug.
This works really well with stony corals.
Pop it off its base, then just glue
the stony portion directly to the aquascape.
And the frag plug ugliness is gone.
You can take a frag plug and you can trim it
so that you don't see very much.
This can be a really good idea
if you have a small encrusting coral
on a larger frag plug and you don't wanna stare
at that frag plug for the next year as it encrusts.
You can take your bone cutters and just trim around it.
Then you have super glue.
Super glue is probably the most common way
of attaching a coral or a frag plug to your aquascape.
It can get a little bit tricky,
and you may need to use a lot more than you think.
Because as soon as you put the glue underwater
it develops a little film over it.
So you'll be there trying to stick it on
to the aquascape and it just won't hold.
But this is probably the most common way to attach corals.
Next up, you have epoxy.
There are different colored epoxies out there.
I think this one is a gray.
This one is a coralline color.
I would obviously just choose the one
that most matches the color of your rock.
But epoxy can be really helpful
when attaching larger pieces of coral,
creating more of a structure
around that coral to put it into place.
The next method is the epoxy super glue trick.
You can actually take some super glue
put it on the bottom of the epoxy,
then on the top of the epoxy put some more super glue.
Take your coral frag, put it onto there
and then attach it to the aquascape.
Sometimes that just holds better.
Then there is the no glue method.
This works best if you have some sort of frag
that has the base on it and you have a large crevice.
Sometimes it works perfectly where you can just
trim up the frag plug and then place that base
down into the crevice and it stays put.
But I would definitely still recommend using some glue
because there are critters that will knock it over.
See urchins are notorious at this,
but even snails, especially turbo snails,
they can be total bulldozers.
And if you don't glue it onto place
and I have definitely made this mistake,
check out this picture of an acan that I used to have.
It used to be full of corals
and then a snail knocked it over
and more than half of it died.
So still glue it into place.
And the last method of attaching corals
to the aquascape is just by creating an island.
Islands are fantastic, especially for rather invasive
and fast-spreading corals.
You'll most commonly see islands
for things like GSP or green star polyps,
Zoanthids, palythoas, and especially for things
like pulsing Xenia, things that grow fast
and will take over everything.
Just put them on an island
and move them a little bit away from the main aquascape.
We're almost to the step by step instructions.
But first let me give you some tips
and tricks to consider before we get there.
Number one, always secure corals to your aquascape.
I already mentioned it.
Just placing corals on your aquascape is a bad idea.
Even a small snail may be able to go by,
knock it off its place,
it ends up on the sand bed flipped over and it's dead.
Tip number two, there are certain corals
that are meant to be placed on the sand bed
or that can be placed on the sand bed.
And there's nothing wrong with this.
Don't get me wrong,
I place them on the sand bed all the time.
But if you are gonna put corals on a sand bed,
let's take acans as an example,
probably don't want to buy a sand sifting Gobi.
Because what you will find is your Gobi
will just be doing his or her own business,
and will completely cover the coral up.
So just consider what other livestock you have
before placing corals on the sand bed.
Number three, I've already mentioned this,
but super glue once put under water
will create a skin on it,
which will make it a lot less sticky.
That skin can be really tricky.
So you may have to hold that coral
in place for quite a bit longer.
Accelerant here really works.
Using something like the Insta-set
can help that super glue harden quicker.
That way it creates a structure
and secures more quickly to the aquascape.
Number four is with epoxy.
If you ever use epoxy underwater,
be sure to turn off your protein skimmer.
If you don't, I don't know what it is about epoxy
but epoxy is like steroids for your protein skimmer.
And your skimmer will immediately overflow.
Trust me, it will go crazy.
So be sure to turn off your protein skimmer
if you're using epoxy.
And the last tip, tip number five I think,
I've actually lost count.
Don't use plastic super glue bottles underwater.
What's gonna happen if you do
is you're just probably gonna have to throw away
that bottle of super glue.
The salt water will make the super glue
harden in the little tube,
and then you'll have to throw it away
or you'll spend a lot of time trying to cut
or heat or somehow remove that super glue
from that plastic tip.
If you're gonna use super glue underwater
which is totally fine, use something metal.
That way, when you squeeze the super glue out,
water doesn't go back into the tube itself.
Here we go, step-by-step.
How to attach corals to your aquascape.
We are not gonna go through every single method
and every single way of doing this possible.
But we're just gonna touch on
the most common easy ways to do it.
You can get much more advanced later on.
The first thing you're gonna wanna do
is turn that skimmer off.
Getting your hands in there, putting new corals in,
super glue, epoxy, may just make the skimmer overflow.
So turn it off first.
Next is turn your return pump and your wavemakers off.
Having still water inside your display tank
will allow the glue and epoxy to harden.
If you don't do this, you might find
that you're keeping your hand in there
for two minutes until it hardens
and then you take it out and a wavemaker
just blasts it over.
So just turn off your return pumps and your wavemakers
until the glue and epoxy have a chance to harden.
Then go ahead and turn your lights down.
A lot of corals need to be acclimated
over a few weeks to high light conditions.
So just turning them down is gonna help them recover
and acclimate to your new tank.
Prepare your coral locations,
even if you don't know exactly where they are.
Sometimes taking a small bristle brush
and just gently brushing off areas of your aquascape.
For example, if there's a spot on the aquascape
lower down that you wanna put your coral,
but there's a lot of sand on there or a lot of algae,
you're just not gonna have luck attaching it there.
So get outta soft bristle brush
and just wipe down the areas
that you're gonna place your coral,
that way they'll hold in place faster.
Then you're gonna trim or remove
your frag plugs if necessary.
I personally hate the look of frag plugs in my tank.
Sometimes you can't avoid it,
because it's encrusting type coral
but then you don't have to worry
because over time it will completely cover that.
But if possible, remove the corals from the frag plugs
or at least take out some bone cutters
and trim off as much as possible.
Then you're gonna try your hand
at being a landscape architect.
Before you glue anything into place
take all the corals you're gonna put on your scape
and move them around to different locations.
Obviously being careful not to tip them over
or injuring them in any way.
But if you can find areas where you can place them,
then you can step back and take a peek at your tank.
See what colors clash, see what things don't clash.
See if the flow is right, all those things.
Put them where you want them.
Take a step back, make any changes that are necessary.
And then you'll know exactly where you want those corals.
First up is attaching soft corals.
There are a few different ways to do this.
If your soft coral is already on a piece of rubble rock,
you have a couple options here.
One, you can use epoxy or super glue and glue and epoxy
that piece of rubble rock to the aquascape.
This works really well, especially if the rubble rock
is a similar color to the aquascape.
You could also take that piece of rubble rock
if it's large enough and bury it in the sand bed.
Then it will look like your soft coral
is just kind of sprouting out from the sand bed.
But if that piece of rubble rock is too small
you may need to glue it to a larger piece of rock
and then bury that into the sand bed
just so it doesn't fall over.
And lastly, you can use the rubber band method
just take some sort of surgical scissors
or that razor blade, cut off the soft coral at it's base.
And then gently use rubber bands
to attach it to the part of the aquascape you want.
You have to make sure that the rubber bands
are hard enough that it stays put,
but not too hard, or it will just pull through the tissue
over the course of a couple days,
splitting the coral in two.
One last option for soft corals
is if the base is just the right size,
you can often put it into some sort of large crevice,
and that might be secure enough.
But only use that method if putting it into that crevice
will truly hold it in place.
Moving on to stony corals.
Again, there are various ways,
but probably the most common way is using super glue.
For stony corals that have a large stony base,
think Euphyllia, I always remove them from their frag plug.
Then if I can, I will just put
a generous amount of super glue
all the way around the base.
And sometimes I will take one of these
and put a generous amount of super glue
down on the aquascape itself.
The thing about super glue is it's not necessarily
the most sticky substance it's underwater,
but once it dries, it creates a structure
around the stony coral and around the aquascape itself.
So you wanna use a lot.
After I apply all the super glue,
I usually give it a spritz or two
with the accelerant and then I quickly put it underwater
and I hold it in place until it hardens.
I recommend using gloves here.
And people have commented before,
Matthew you're using gloves,
the gloves are filling with water.
What's the point?
Well, the point is not to stick your fingers together.
I have stuck my fingers together doing this
and it's super embarrassing
and it takes a long time to get them unstuck.
There are other stony corals, for example, acans,
that can do really well just sitting on the sand bed.
So if that's the case, just place them on the sand bed.
Just make sure there aren't any other things
like sand sifting Gobis or sand sifting starfish
that might knock it over
or that might just constantly douse it with sand.
If for whatever reason,
super glue just isn't holding well enough,
then you can break out the epoxy.
And epoxy's fantastic, it's safe underwater
and it will harden relatively quickly.
This will help create a lot more structure
around both the coral and the aquascape
to hopefully hold it in place.
But combining epoxy and super glue together
might even work better.
And last up we have encrusting type corals.
These are corals that have generally
already encrusted onto a frag disc or a frag plug.
What I like to do is take my bone cutters
and trim around and remove as much
of the frag disk or frag plug as possible.
That way I just don't have to stare at it for a long time.
But these are just like stony corals, super easy to attach.
Just use a generous amount of super glue on the bottom.
If you want, you can take one of these
metal BRS super glues, put it underwater
apply a generous amount of super glue to the aquascape
put it down and hold it in place.
If you wanna speed up the process
use a little bit of accelerant.
You probably will only need to hold it
in place for 10 to 15 seconds.
If you're not using accelerant,
and you're just using the extra thick super glue,
then you might have to hold it in place for 1 to 2 minutes.
Now again, that was super basic
and it probably didn't answer
every single one of your questions,
but hopefully that gives you enough to go on.
If you want a lot more information,
check out this video here, way more detail
and specific examples of how to put corals
into your display tank.
The corals are installed.
We've given them a day to open up.
We come back in the morning.
They look fantastic.
Maybe we want to feed them for the first time.
Well, that is of course our final episode
in The Ultimate Beginner Guide
to Saltwater Corals and Reef Tanks."
You can check it out right here.
As always, everyone, thanks for watching.
Happy reefing, be well, we'll see you next time.