Removing and reattaching cabbage leather coral.

Stv · Aug 9, 2021

I bought this what I think is a cabbage leather a bit ago as a small colony with the other small coral pictured on it as well.

the other small unattractive ones are getting out of hand (in first two pictures with leather) and honestly I don’t want them in the tank anymore. Also there’s a aitasia anemone against the leather which doesn’t look like it helping anything. (In third picture)

I did hours of reading to see if this is possible and couldn’t find a straight answer. Basically I want to successfully remove the leather from the larger frag rock it all was on when I bought it and mount just the leather straight to my permanent display rock and not to another plug or frag.

is this possible and if so, how exactly do you do it? I basically don’t know how to remove him or remount him. Never worked with a leather before and don’t want to screw this up. Thanks in advance.

Timfish · Aug 9, 2021

Super easy. Carefully peel it off with your fingers, there will be some tissue left behind and it likely will continue to grow. Use wood or plastic scewers to hold it in place on your rock until it attaches. Alternately you can set it in a bowl or flat container filled with sand or gravel and after it attaches itself to some you can superglue it to your rock.

Mikedawg · Aug 9, 2021

To frag, I use a rubber band to attach to a piece of rubble after cutting the coral with a pair of scissors or scalpel. Takes a week or so for leather to reattach ime. In your case I would pull/cut off from big rock and rubber band back on - glue will make it slime up and difficult to reattach. Don't worry, you really can't mess it up

Stv · Aug 9, 2021

Mikedawg said:
To frag, I use a rubber band to attach to a piece of rubble after cutting the coral with a pair of scissors or scalpel. Takes a week or so for leather to reattach ime. In your case I would pull/cut off from big rock and rubber band back on - glue will make it slime up and difficult to reattach. Don't worry, you really can't mess it up

That’s wesome news thank both of you. So just to clarify, pull him off gently, get rid of the old rock snd other stuff with it, gently figure out how to rubberband him down where I want him and wait a week or two to remove the rubberband?

Stv · Aug 9, 2021

Stv said:
That’s wesome news thank both of you. So just to clarify, pull him off gently, get rid of the old rock snd other stuff with it, gently figure out how to rubberband him down where I want him and wait a week or two to remove the rubberband?

Also can anyone confirm the anemone in the second picture is harmful to a tank? (aitasia). I like the look of him but think he’s one of the problem ones otherwise I’d keep him too.