Coral placement natural look

[ReefRusty]

Now it may have been answered or is a simple one to solve but I've seen so many tanks with corals on the rockwork look so natural and not like it has been stuck on there by hand( I know they are) but how do you get thw natural look?

All the corals I have bought have a thick rock attached to it making it look like I've just stuck it there. Roughly 1"of rock

This is an example on what i mean.

 

[sp1187]

depends on the corals.
zoas, leathers, polyps, sps will grow and cover the frag plug they are attached to.
on lps if they come attached to a plug I usually just cut the plug away and then attach the coral
directly to the scape.

 

[PicassoClown04]

I do exactly as above. Usually with LPS that come with thick rock attached like your pic, I shove it in a cave so the coral sticks up and into the light. Sometimes if I want to put the coral on the bottom, I stack small rocks (large rubble) around the coral to make it look more natural then allow something like clove or GSP to cover the new “island” to really integrate it into the reef

 

[ReefRusty]

Yeah right just good to see what people do to minimise the just placed it there look. Have a couple of hammers on plugs but will see how they react to flow and lighting before I remove from plug and glue to rock.

 

[DarkReefer]

My lobo is the same, very thick piece and a lot bigger than I expected from when I saw it in the shop to bringing it home and putting it in the tank. Had to try bury mine into the sand to give it more of a 'natural' look.

I think over time once you add more and more corals, it'll look more and more natural anyway. Initially we all have just bits of rock in our tank and adding a couple of corals here or there looks out of place, but as soon as they start to establish themselves and grow, plus addition of more pieces I think it'll gradually look more and more lush with life and more natural.

 

[landlubber]

growth covers all.
what a coral looks like at the day of placement and the same coral after 2 years in a system are totally different. frag plugs certainly cause a tank to look new but its good practice to cut those off anyway whenever possible.

 

[RobB'z Reef]

i usually rip off the plug or trim it down to the point you don't notice it when i can. Sometime with tiny zoa frags this can be harder and I'll wait till it grows out, frag it and glue it right to the rock instead of another frag plug. About to do that to a pile of them actually.