Encrusting corals onto coral skeletons?

[Killamanjaro]

I was looking online on a few website I browse for corals and noticed how many beautifully coloured encrusting corals there are. Now admittedly I don’t tend to buy encrusting corals and tend to go for the swaying euphyllias and branches of acros etc.

This lead to a train of thought of what would these encrusting corals look like on branching coral skeletons? People have grown encrusting corals over bottles, skulls and all sorts of other things and considering every reef is made up of new corals growing on dead coral skeletons it would work.

I would like to give this a try but I can’t find any coral skeletons to buy or where to buy them, would it work with resin corals like the ones they put in FOWLR aquariums?

Have you guys done something like this before. Do you have any pics to share of you’re endeavours?

 

[P-Dub]

I was looking online on a few website I browse for corals and noticed how many beautifully coloured encrusting corals there are. Now admittedly I don’t tend to buy encrusting corals and tend to go for the swaying euphyllias and branches of acros etc.

This lead to a train of thought of what would these encrusting corals look like on branching coral skeletons? People have grown encrusting corals over bottles, skulls and all sorts of other things and considering every reef is made up of new corals growing on dead coral skeletons it would work.

I would like to give this a try but I can’t find any coral skeletons to buy or where to buy them, would it work with resin corals like the ones they put in FOWLR aquariums?

Have you guys done something like this before. Do you have any pics to share of you’re endeavours?

I believe this would work on any structure manufactured with reef safe materials. Not all plastics are the same.

 

[Mjrenz]

I was looking online on a few website I browse for corals and noticed how many beautifully coloured encrusting corals there are. Now admittedly I don’t tend to buy encrusting corals and tend to go for the swaying euphyllias and branches of acros etc.

This lead to a train of thought of what would these encrusting corals look like on branching coral skeletons? People have grown encrusting corals over bottles, skulls and all sorts of other things and considering every reef is made up of new corals growing on dead coral skeletons it would work.

I would like to give this a try but I can’t find any coral skeletons to buy or where to buy them, would it work with resin corals like the ones they put in FOWLR aquariums?

Have you guys done something like this before. Do you have any pics to share of you’re endeavours?

I've thought about doing this also but haven't tried it yet. I'd imagine the resin corals would work just so long as you don't mind looking at fake coral for a while, I've seen encrusting corals cover egg crate quite well

 

[Scotty Buttons]

 

[Mjrenz]

That's awesome

 

[Killamanjaro]

I've thought about doing this also but haven't tried it yet. I'd imagine the resin corals would work just so long as you don't mind looking at fake coral for a while, I've seen encrusting corals cover egg crate quite well

I wouldn’t mind at all, I’d just keep it in the frag tank I’m planning on setting up and let it encrust over the resin coral or coral skeleton.... it’s the end game that matters anyway, I think it would look awesome!

 

[Killamanjaro]

Is it even possible to buy dead coral skeletons? I know loads of reefers just throw them out or put them in their calcium reactors when a colony dies on them.

 

[Mjrenz]

I'm willing to bet someone would send you some

 

[Backreefing]

Maybe something like a plastic sunken ship or a treasure chest I seen a pic of metershower on a scull

Sorry for my smelling the dang spellcheck

 

[Hemmdog]

A scoly skeleton came in with my liverock, I have a favia encrusting over it now. Not quite as cool as a AT-AT

 

[Scotty Buttons]

Is it even possible to buy dead coral skeletons? I know loads of reefers just throw them out or put them in their calcium reactors when a colony dies on them.

I've seen people selling coral skeletons on Ebay, but there asking pretty high prices. There selling it as art.

 

[High ICP]

I never had an AT AT

But I had a moai with a flat top and goatee out of GSP

 

[Killamanjaro]

I've seen people selling coral skeletons on Ebay, but there asking pretty high prices. There selling it as art.

I’ve just had a look on eBay, I was only finding the resin stuff at first but now I’ve managed to find real ones that are listed under fossils etc.

I’ve ordered a couple of them, now to order a couple of little cyphastrea and monti frags and hope they look awesome.

Should I cure the coral skeletons first? The way you would with live rock, just in case they leach anything.

Aside from cyphastrea and encrusting montipora, what other kinds of coral would be worth trying to encrust over these skeletons?

 

[Dsnakes]

Following along.

A while back a person sold a ‘Frankenstein Cyphastrea’ which was neat. He took an SPS skeleton and glued small bits of different Cyphastrea to it and they all grew together.

 

[Backreefing]

Yes cure them they may have bleach or metals from the cleaning

 

[Killamanjaro]

Following along.

A while back a person sold a ‘Frankenstein Cyphastrea’ which was neat. He took an SPS skeleton and glued small bits of different Cyphastrea to it and they all grew together.

That’s awesome! Do you have a link or pictures of it?

Sounds similar to an article I read about a man that grafted different fruit tree twigs onto a stump. Over the years they all grew into one tree with many different fruit branches. When it blossomed it had like 10 different colours.... I thought it was pretty cool.... yeah I’m a nerd lol

 

[Dsnakes]

Check it out here

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/frankenstein-cyphastrea-colony.340176/

 

[Killamanjaro]

Check it out here

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/frankenstein-cyphastrea-colony.340176/

This guy has done exactly what I was thinking of. It will probably take a while for them to encrust but I’ll do a few and post my end results.

It will be a nice way of having encrusting corals I normally wouldn’t buy. Thanks for posting the link.

 

[Backreefing]

That’s awesome! Do you have a link or pictures of it?

Sounds similar to an article I read about a man that grafted different fruit tree twigs onto a stump. Over the years they all grew into one tree with many different fruit branches. When it blossomed it had like 10 different colours.... I thought it was pretty cool.... yeah I’m a nerd lol

That’s common for Apple trees anyone can buy a sapling with multiple types of apples on one graphed tree.

 

[NashobaTek]

Richards seashells sells real coral skeletons at decent prices. It's where I got all of mine. Definitely going to do this with a few of the skeletons