Torch With Some Tentacles Against Glass?

[cuticom]

So whoever fragged my new torch coral never thought about the need to attach it to something, a completely rounded stem, with not a notch or bump in site, and the coralfix won't attach to it.

So it's been placed on the sandbed where it's quite stable, but when fully extended about a quarter of the tentacles on two heads (5 heads in total) end up looking mashed between the glass and the coral head, it's not leaning on the glass at all, just when it's fully expanded theres not room.

I can't move it back any further, or anywhere in the tank for that matter since I can't attach it to the rock. So is there going to be any problems with some of the tentacles being mashed between coral and glass? or will it just work itself out and stick the tentacles up instead of down after a time?

 

[Colin_T]

The polyps will suffer to some degree so it is preferable to move it somewhere so they can open fully and have water moving around them. Try using a short piece of PVC pipe and have the coral end stuck in that. Then put the PVC pipe in amongst the rocks.

 

[cuticom]

Can't.

The tank is a strange size, being only 35 cm deep but 60 cm high, most of the 35cm is made up of my rock pile, there's maybe two places the coral and go and both are near the glass. When the corals retracted theres a good 2 cm gap between coral and glass, so in theory shouldn't it be able to stick its tentacles up instead of down?

The torch was an impulse buy on my mothers part, and I had let her get it figuring I could glue it to a larger bit of rock, but it just won't stick, I went through an entire pack of coralfix trying to attach it.

The polyps do have water movement, there's a powerhead pointed in such a way so that the flow rebounds of a rock and goes over the coral, the coral seems pretty happy with it, it's fully extended and the tentacles of the 3 unaffected polyps, and most of the tentacles of the two polyps with the stuck section are out and waving and eating.

Because I wasn't planning on a torch, and the tanks such a strange size there's only one corner it can go, otherwise it's gonna be open warfare between it and the other corals in the tank.....

 

[cuticom]

Just removed a rock from the tank, and moved the torch back 5cm, it's leaning against another piece of rock, but lower down so hopefully it's tentacles won't be able to get caught between. I'm hoping this'll work, otherwise it's back to square one....

 

[Colin_T]

fair enough

The other option is to drill a hole in one of the rocks and put the end of the coral into the hole. Limestone is pretty soft and a normal masonry drill bit will go through it without a problem. You could drill a number of holes in a circle and then break out the remaining piece. Then put the end of the coral into that.

 

[cuticom]

Hmm I'll see if any of my rocks are thin enough to do that, in a few weeks time my DIY rubble will be ready which would work better for something like that...

Heres where the torch is sitting at the moment, theres only 3 heads really visible, the other two are further back, and it does still need more flow, I'll pick up a better powerhead on Tuesday for that....