Lovely coral, butt-ugly rock: what to do?

[latuttle]

I've started adding coral frags to my tank. I have several that came on pieces of rock roughly the size of one of those small, round guest-soaps. One of them is on a rectangular piece of orange hideous rock roughly the size of a large deck of cards. Ugh.

None of these rocks lend themselves well to being superglued onto existing rockwork, without the base being obvious. The orange-card-deck rock is just wretched looking.

Does anyone have any neat tricks to dealing with frags that arrive attached to unattractive / inconveniently-shaped bases?

Thanks!

Laura

 

[Gina]

I guess that would depend on the type of coral that is on the rock.
What do you have?

 

[iluvzigz]

i was always thinking the same thing i never liked some of those rocks....i willl follow this one..

 

[latuttle]

There is a xenia on the big orange rock. The little rocks, which are less objectionable, have a trumpet coral, a white tip leather, a finger leather, a yellow cup, a pineapple coral and a nobby sea rod.

If the rocks were only a lot thinner, I could just glue them to my LR and coralline algae would eventually hide the seam. The Xenia is particularly tricky because there is a tiny colony growing next to it, so lopping the rock in half would be bad.

Here are some pics:

 

[mempho reefer]

I would just leave them be. You risk damaging the coral if you try to remove it from the plug. In time they will both encrust the plug/rock/brickette or whatever that is. However, you might want to glue the plug into the position in the tank that you want it. It won't look so good a first but in will as time goes on. Its worked for me although I didn't have plugs like that.

 

[Gina]

Easy one.
Place the rock next to another rock and eventually the Xenia will latch on to the other piece of rock.
Xenia spreads like crazy in the right environment.

 

[iluvzigz]

depending on how deep your sand is ,you could try to bury the rock in the sand..since it looks like you keep it there anyways....whoops didnt see that post..that one sounds good too gina...

 

[latuttle]

Actually, I don't want the xenia on the sandbed - I just got that coral today and I am leaving it there for a couple of days to let it get used to my lights.

I love the xenia idea - I'll go with that. It sounds like I should just glue the guest-soap rocks down and let time hide them.

Thanks for the help.

 

[boozeman]

is it possible (with the hard coral frags) to take a dremel and grind away at the offending plug?

 

[mempho reefer]

Good one Booze! The opportunity to combine power tools and reefing!!!

 

[Gibeon]

Gina's suggestion is correct. That stuff loves to move uphill too, so place a small rock on top of the brick, just touching the xenia and it will crawl onto the new rock in a week or two.

I've got one in my tank that's just about done moving. I'll see if I can get a pic tomorrow.

 

[Witfull]

is it possible (with the hard coral frags) to take a dremel and grind away at the offending plug?

exactly my thinking,,,better living with power tools~

or,,,manual whacking with a screwdriver and hammer has worked in the past for me to0 (sometimes its faster, and relieves stress...lol)

 

[latuttle]

So let me see if I understand correctly. If I give it a rock uphill and touching it, it will relocate? They can let go of their rock and move to another?

 

[Gina]

The Xenia can yes.

 

[aquaman3680]

just cut it off all you have to do is a hammer and a chisle if you dont have a dremel

 

[XBwlr]

So let me see if I understand correctly. If I give it a rock uphill and touching it, it will relocate? They can let go of their rock and move to another?

The xenia I have leaned over to another rock... it didn't move, it split.

Maybe yours will split and then you could take the ugly orange rock back to the store for a trade... or swap with another reefer.

Just a thought.

 

[iluvzigz]

that would be best you get two things out of it, and get rid of that rock.

 

[BoomerD]

Most corals are easy to frag off the small plug they come on, and reattach to a different piece anyway. Xenia is easy. Either do it as Gina mentioned, OR, use a razor and cut it off the plug as close to the bottom as possible. Attach the frag to a piece of rock with a rubberband, place it where you want, and you're done. YES, it will make the coral mad...and it will look like crap for a while, but I think I've lost only one or 2 xenia frags out of maybe 100 that I fragged...I'd sell it to the LFS for credit as it overtook my tank...

 

[XBwlr]

Here's a pic of what my xenia did.

I couldn't get the stuff to grow when I had my 29 gallon, now I've got a 75 gallon and it's growing like a weed.

Good luck with yours.