Yes, the gel is the trick. Make sure to dry the base of the frag and the hole it is going into if possible, coat both pieces with the gel, and press them together and swirl under water for a few seconds (It has taken as long as 20 seconds for me personally), then place in a position where there is not too much stress on the joint for a bit, usualy sets up firmly within 3 or so minutes, really hard within 10 minutes.
Cyanoacrylate is a great glue for attahcing corals, although it is a little problematic for
soft corals, if they can be dried then held in place to dry rockfor 30 or so seconds, it will attach them as well. Cyan9oacrylate glue and gel is (relatively) nontoxic, very fast-acting, extremely strong, needs no other mixer or catalyst outside its naturally present catalyst, and does not require any special conditiions (ovens, clamps, special mixers, vices, etc.) to form its bond.The catylist for cyanoacrylate to set is quite convenient. It is the hydroxyl ions in common water, present in air, out tank water, or if you're in a hurry, your breath, and can be sped up a bit by temp. Under natural
atmospheric conditions, a thin layer of water is naturally present on almost any surface one might want to glue, enough so that it will make cyanoacrylate change form a readily spreadable liquid with little surface tension to its hard plastic lump state. Cyanoacrylate is a thermosetting adhesive, which means that it cannot be heated and softened repeatedly. As it cures and sets, cyanoacrylate becomes permanently crosslinked, forming a tough and permanent polymer plastic.
Superglue as a liquid cyanoacrylate appears as a monomer (ignore the dots, they are in to preserve the orientation of the molecular model in vBull):
. . .CN
. ./
CH2=C
. .\
. . COOR
The R is a carbon chain variable which slightly changes the characteristics of the molecule based on the structure of the side chain. Cyanoacrylate is commercially available in many different forms and thicjknesses where the "R" can be an ethyl, methyl, isopropyl, allyl, butyl, isobutyl, methoxyethyl, and ethoxyethyl cyanoacrylate esters. It is this "R" group that forms the consistancy and the ability to have different "stick" characteristics for the individual glues on the market. These allow cyanoacrylates to be used for everything from making hoes to building automobiles. In the presence of the hydroxyl catylist, the superglue changes, going through an ionic polymerization resulting in a long chained compound that looks something like this:
. CN . . . CN . . . CN . . . CN
. | . . . . | . . . . | . . . . .|
-CH2C -(CH2C)-(CH2C)-(CH2C) -(repeated again and again)
. | . . . . | . . . . | . . . . .|
. COOR . COOR . COOR. . COOR
The single cyanoacrylate monomer joins up like a series of lego blocks, joined together by the central carbon as the double bond is hydrated, then goes through an elimination of the hydroxyl (through a dehydration? don't remember the EXACT mechanism...
) as the single cyanoacrylate molecules link up. This forms quite long chains, changing the consistency of the glue and the orientation of the polymers to its plastic consistency through a process known as "reptation" (named for this snake-like activity) due to brownian motion (wiggling of the molecular chain, becomes quite pronounced as the chains enlongates.) As these reptating molecules grow, they become more entangled, and as the molecular length and weight increases, the phase changes from a thin liquid to a thick gel to eventually form an molecular entanglement of quite long fixed molecules that make the hard plastic. This is our superglue when it sets. Newer cyanoacrylates are quite good at working in wet environments, especially with porous substances.
Just thought you'd like to know, unfortunately it is another piece of useless trivia floating around in my head totally unrelated (well, mostly unrelated) to the topic at hand...
HTH
