Removing Maricultured from Mounting Rock

[JavaJacketOC]

Came across a couple nice maricultured pieces at an LFS but the rock they're mounted on are really large and kinda ugly. The pieces have started encrusting so I don't want to lose the new growth nor do I want to stress the coral out by damaging it. I've also heard that some of the manufactured rocks they mount them on can leech bad stuff.

 

Has anyone had experience with removing the bulk of the mounting rock? If so, is it something I can do with out a dremel? Possibly something I can just crush with pliers like ceramic frag plugs?

[dadummy]

I have cut through the mount with a bone cutter. Cut from the edge of the mount towards the coral. Sometimes the mount breaks off clean, other times a couple more cuts are needed and the epoxy crud cut off the base. You can also try to wiggle the coral, sometimes they are loose in the mount and a little persuasion can get them free. I have also grabbed the base of the coral with bone cutters and twisted the coral out of the mount. I haven't tried it, but I would bet you could chisel the mount off with a hammer and chisel, screwdriver or anything else you can beat against the mount.

 

Chalice and other corals can be removed as well, they put a glob of putty on a mount and push the coral down into the crud. A sharp blow with a hammer and chisel between the epoxy and mount usually knocks them off.

 

I don't know what resin they use to mount the coral, looks like Bondo to me. Have read too that the epoxy may leach heavy metals as well, don't know if there is any truth to it or not

[HarryPotter]

Came across a couple nice maricultured pieces at an LFS but the rock they're mounted on are really large and kinda ugly. The pieces have started encrusting so I don't want to lose the new growth nor do I want to stress the coral out by damaging it. I've also heard that some of the manufactured rocks they mount them on can leech bad stuff.

 

Has anyone had experience with removing the bulk of the mounting rock? If so, is it something I can do with out a dremel? Possibly something I can just crush with pliers like ceramic frag plugs?

 

 

Where are the pieces from? The ones from bali come on similar large pieces. If not encrusted I would say to break them off as low as possible, if encrusted to use a bandsaw to cut off as much rock as you want.

[JavaJacketOC]

I have cut through the mount with a bone cutter. Cut from the edge of the mount towards the coral. Sometimes the mount breaks off clean, other times a couple more cuts are needed and the epoxy crud cut off the base. You can also try to wiggle the coral, sometimes they are loose in the mount and a little persuasion can get them free. I have also grabbed the base of the coral with bone cutters and twisted the coral out of the mount. I haven't tried it, but I would bet you could chisel the mount off with a hammer and chisel, screwdriver or anything else you can beat against the mount.

 

Chalice and other corals can be removed as well, they put a glob of putty on a mount and push the coral down into the crud. A sharp blow with a hammer and chisel between the epoxy and mount usually knocks them off.

 

I don't know what resin they use to mount the coral, looks like Bondo to me. Have read too that the epoxy may leach heavy metals as well, don't know if there is any truth to it or not

 

I have heard the same about the bondo and definitely don't want to chance it, might just cut it off at the base and remount to something else. I'm a little hesitant of maricultured stuff in general but we'll see, Thanks for the feedback.

 

 

Where are the pieces from? The ones from bali come on similar large pieces. If not encrusted I would say to break them off as low as possible, if encrusted to use a bandsaw to cut off as much rock as you want.

 

I'm not sure where they're from and the LFS doesn't usually know, they just go pick stuff from the wholesaler and give it a generic label. They're typically very inexpensive but it's a gamble. In this case it's a peach colored tabling acro that's about 3" x 2" and it's only 40.00. Not fancy but I like the growth of it so far.

[dadummy]

a LFS by me brings in alot of cultured acro. They place them in a large tank like 6x4 with a couple reef brites and leave them there for a few days to week. If they don't sell as a colony the get chopped up and placed in a tank with china boxes running only blue LED. Surprisingly only under the reef brites the corals maintain there color pretty well. Even in the tank under the blue LED colors stay pretty good.

I bring home pieces and blast them with halide or T5 and they either get very light, or brown out, even placed in a tank off to the sides or bottom.

 

Some of those not so fancy cultured pieces turn into gems. I would rather pickup a cultured acro, color it up and grow it out and be amazed at what it turned into then drop a couple bills on a 1/4" nub of some named coral that has the same chance of dying as a cultured