Cutting Coral rock

[Limpit]

Any ideas on how to slice large pieces of base rock in two the long way to make flat shelves out of them?
I was going to try an abrasive masonry blade but am afraid of getting blade residue embedded in the rock.

[Reptoreef]

IMO, try a splitting wedge and hammer...

[peregrinus]

thats what i would say hammer and chisel..

[jerryc]

Using a sharp chisel make a line where you wont it to brake then use a wide
one to brake it.
most times it will brake along the line but not always

[Limpit]

Thanks for the imput. I will try the chisel method but I dont think it will work on the really long pieces I have. I am going to try and find someone with a tile saw and give that a try for the larger pieces.

[peregrinus]

you could drill a few holes in it first along the place where you want to fracsure it then use the cheisl

[dakar]

I'm not so sure in the tile saw... first the blades are expensiive as all get out... the one for mine is $70... not sure I'd want to test cutting rock with it.

Try scoring the rock with a cold chisel and snapping it...

[Limpit]

O.K. after trying the chisel method on one rock I finished off the other ones with no problem except the real long one. Like I figured it was just too large of a piece to split down the length off. I ended up with about 4 pieces instead of 2 but all was not lost.
Now for the hard part, tearing out all the coral, live and base rock from my tank and rebuilding.
I will post before and after pics when finished.

[davejnz]

My favorite tool to use for splitting rock/cutting stoney corals is a 4" grinder with a diamond blade.When cutting large pieces,I score the rock where i want it to split by cutting as deep as the blade goes(about 2"),then i'll use a large screwdiver as a wedge to pry it apart.Sometimes a little extra force will be required and i'll use a hammer.With a little practice,you'll be able to split the rock exactly where you want to.

[Limpit]

Well after 6 hours of tank remodeling I finally finished last night. I hope that I did not kill off anything in the process. Just went down there today and things look pretty good for having torn it all apart last night. Lights just came on an hour ago so I will wait to take some pics until everything is opened up.

[Limpit]

O.K. as promised here are some before and after pictures. I added an additional 45 pounds of LR and about 35 more pounds of the base rock that I had cut (chiseled) flat.
Here is the tank before from the front.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v358/Limpit/beforefull7-29.jpg
Here it is after the rebuild.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v358/Limpit/afterfull7-29.jpg
Left side before.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v358/Limpit/beforeleft7-29.jpg
Left side after.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v358/Limpit/afterleft7-29.jpg
I think that it looks more like a actual reef now and I also think that the softies stand out better this way.
And I did not have to go and use a tile saw after all, thanks for the chisel tip. :D