Coral plug issue! A must fix.

I have 4 SPS Corals on those terrible plugs, 1 broke while in shipping which was a good thing, he is now mounted on a sturdy piece of rock. Now the other 4 is a different story, I done my best to find holes in the rock, with location, Current, lighting also a factor on where to stick them, here is the problem, some of those are not perfect fits and my stupid reef hermits go out of their ways to get in those holes, they have come very close to knocking them over when pushing those plugs out of their way to get in those holes, I am concerned as the Corals gets bigger, taller they will be more tippier, my Red Candy Cap and Tri-color are my biggest concerns as i heard their very brittle. How can I fix this?

 

You can get or make a frag rack and let the frags grow out some until you feel they are more easy to handle and then remove them from the plugs.

Another idea is to use underwater epoxy and anchor the plugs for awhile to the LR and let them grow out and then remove from plugs.

Typically I like to remove from the plugs after a couple days of acclimation or use a frag rack.
Yes you can brake a few branches but in a stable tank the sps usually grow back well.

 

I usually break off the stem of the plug so I an left with a flat disc then glue that to the rock. The coral will then crust over the plug and onto the rock.

 

if you can break the putty at the joint between coral and plug, and then re attach to your rockwork, that would be my preference

are they the plastic plugs? if so you may be able to prize the putty off the plug using a flat head screwdriver ( I have used that with SPS frags on plastic plugs)

 

Buy some gel super glue and apply it where the plug contacts rock, after pulling the plugs out of the tank, and then quickly replace the plugs in their resting places. Remember to twist the plugs to break the skin that forms on the gel when it contacts water.

 

Although I don't have any sps,I can't stand frag plugs myself.I've had the best luck (my experience only) by snipping the shaft of the plug off with sidecuts and putting a big glob of superglue gel on it and quickly put it in place.The glue will skin over as soon as it hits the water,but i use enough glue to squish out and still attach to the rock.It has stopped my hermits from playing kickball with my zoa frags.

 

Given time, they will overgrow the plug and attach to the rock, especially the tr-colored (mine has) I have the same issue only it's with a tuxedo urchin and zoo colonies, I have resorted to super glue which is fine as long as you don't want/need to move the colonies. I have also found that trimming the plug base with my bone cutters in order to fit into smaller holes that the crabs can't get into really helps too.

Another solution that I have read about has been to attach a small piece of rigid tubing to the base of your plug (with epoxy or superglue) and then attaching them small holes in your LR. You can either drill 1" holes in the rock or use the ones that nature has already provided.

I built a frag rack from egg crate and attached it to a magnetic algea scraper with zip ties and I had to add walls to 3 of the sides in order to keep the frags on the rack as the snails/crabs/urchin were knocking them off the rack! Make no mistake, those buggers are tenacious!

 

I like that, Kickball! So true and urchin's like to play hide and go seek!

 

I'm suprized the urchins don't wear them as hats,lol.

 

Some good advice, thanks for responding! I have one that looks like it can be an easy removal off the plug, the Tri-color seems to be the one the hermits pick on the most, it has encrusted about half the plug to this point, I tried putting smaller rocks in the hole, but the hermits just move them, hahaha! the Red Candy Cap they try really hard to get in that hole, I see the Coral moving up and down and side to side a lot. They are those ceramic plugs. What I don't understand is why are they so persistant to get in them? They don't train well, many times I gone in there with my poker stick and had to pluck them out of the holes, their funny PIMA.