Specific Superglue brand

[DanyL]

That's good to know Thx! So you go from spraying your frags, into a separate container of salt water? Never directly into the tank to mount them? That's more of what I am wondering... will it contaminate the water in the display if I used it the way you are using it...

PS - I have not done this, I was just wondering.

Yes, I do use a separate container, but more for my own comfort because I frag a lot all at once.

I did put frags with accelerator on directly into the tank too with no harm observed, but not very often or in big quantities.

As for using the accelerator under water - it doesn’t work, it’s an oily based liquid (or at least one of the components is), and it simply washes off. You really do need to let it set outside the water first, and only then put it under water.

 

[Rappa]

For a little experiment... In a 5 gallon bucket, I have put a glob of glue on a rock inside the water, then put a some on a plug, then sprayed the plug side glue with accelerator to start the chemical reaction. I quickly placed the plug in the water to mount it to the glue on the rock and the two glued surfaces bonded together in seconds. It would be an awesome way to mount plugs to rock in the display but I worried that it would put chemicals in the water. Like you said though, in small quantities it may be ok especially with a large water volume tank... I'll prolly just stick with the trusted method.

 

[DanyL]

Interesting. I’ve tried something similar years ago, but instead of using a plug I directly sprayed the coral and then tried to mount it on a rock in an “impossible” position (which I usually use an accelerator for), but I haven’t seen that same affect under water like I do outside, nor did I notice any significant improvement to my regular method.

What I did notice however is the accelerator stayed on top, completely separated from the saltwater and immediately being washed into the weir. The skimmer momentarily reacted similarly to an olive oil (which is an old school method to “calm down” an overreacting skimmer) until it done processing it and came back to normal operation.

Just to make sure - was this test done in saltwater? It could possibly react differently in fresh vs salt.

Also - did you compare it to dipping the plug with glue in water for a moment for it to create that initial “skin” and only than putting it back attaching to a rock? Because the reaction is similar, but with the accelerator it should be dramatically faster, with a strong initial bond than with water alone, which I haven’t noticed in my own test.

 

[Solo McReefer]

cause a LOT of poisonous gas

What is this poisonous gas you write of?

 

[Rappa]

I am going to try it again in a more scientific manor. I was playing around when I initially tried it. I will let you know what happens... Just to be clear, there has to be glue already setting up on a rock inside the salt water (which means you typically need the tube version, not a bottle), and glue on the frag/coral out of the water that gets a spray of accelerator. Then the plug/frag goes immediately into a glue sandwich in the water.

 

[DanyL]

While I do from time to time put a dub of glue on the rock underwater first, I usually prefer to put it only on the coral/plug side, so I doubt I did so on my test (or at least I don’t recall doing it).

However, I’m not sure wether this would have any affect compared to a control group. It’ll be something interesting to experiment with though.

One thing that I thought of doing is to try to embed and mix the accelerator within the glue itself and than quickly try to attach it while the reaction is still in progress - but I feel like it would have to be done so fast that it wouldn’t be practical to implement.

Keep me updated with your test results, it’ll be interesting to see what you can come up with.