Soft Coral

[Reefer1959]

I just got a white pom pom xenia frag, and it was attached to a huge square aragonite plug. Can this soft coral be removed safely from the plug, and attached to the rock in my tank? I have done it with LPS coarl, but never soft coral. Thanks.

[Daves.Reef]

yes, use a razor blade between the plug and coral. then rubberband down where you want it. FWIW try to put it on its own rock away from other rock or it will spread like the flu.

[Reefer1959]

Thanks very much. I'm guessing I shouldn't use glue?

[bangai64]

You can actually pull it of the plug with tweezers. I used to use hemostats. And you can glue them only need a little bit for these guys.

[Reefer1959]

If I stick it in a hole in my rock, will they attach themselves? I also wondered about mushroom coral, because I got one that fell off the rock that it came on, and I thought someone had told me that they will actually move around the tank like an anemone, and attache themself somewhere. Is that true?

[J2T]

I've never had luck using glue on soft corals, they tend to slime off of the glue. For xenia I have used a combination of glue and fishing line to hold them in place. Putting a rubber band/fishing line too tight will just split it in half....so you just need light pressure holding it in place. Just needs like 2 or 3 days to attach usually.

[cgray07]

I used glue and had great results! I guess it just differs from tank to tank.

[cloak]

I would just place that ugly plug somewhere among the rocks. Under the right conditions, you won't even know it's there given time. Cutting the coral might be more trouble than it's worth IMO.

http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2002-10/ac/feature/index.php

HTH.

[Mussin]

You could scrape the Xenia off with an old rusty knife and it will still grow like wildfire. Very hadry and can take over if you dont keep an eye on it.

[kimdawg]

I have a hard time gluing soft coral also. It seems to slime and fall off of the rock. I take a solo cup and cut off the top couple of inches and place it in the sand. I fill this with small shells and and small pieces of rock. I wedge the coral in this rubble and it will attach within a week. This will also work with loose mushrooms if you put it in a low flow section.

[marvelousone]

Use razor blade to get it off plug. I use super glue gel. let the glue sit for 10-15 second to start to dry then put the coral on the glue. It sticks better without sliding off. Then sit it in a bowl of tank water for a couple minutes before putting it back in the tank. The flow will sometimes remove it from the rock if the glue is not hard enough. I frag xenia all the time for a lfs. I glue it to rock rubble everytime.