Big green hairy mushrooms

[dendro982]

How to remove the big green hairy mushrooms from the rock and attach them to a new, small rock?

I was told to cut it off by single smooth movement with a new razor blade. And attach as usual mushrooms.

Tried, disaster:

1. Cutting off anything by razor blade far in tank, without seeing what you are doing is not a good idea, even with half of razor blade (fingers).

2. The rock was uneven, mushroom migrated to a concavity. Spoon-shaped blade would be much better!

3. I wasn't able to cut with smooth movement through a couple of inches of the meaty mushroom's base. It was a butchery, needless to say. Same was with cutting them in quarters for propagation.

The poor mushrooms didn't recovered after that, decomposed in Q tank, even with water changes, filtration and carbon (but no spare small skimmer).

New mushrooms started to grow on the old place. I have to be prepared to the next removal, with better results.

How you removed your big mushrooms (~5" the opened mushroom diameter, ~2" diameter of its base, or more)?

[graphixx]

if you can chisel part of the rock off with the shroom that will make it easier to attack. if you can get the rock out of the water that helps if n ot just chisel away.

[dendro982]

They are on 30 Lb (15 kg) bottom boulder in the rockwork, removing it will require removing all rocks above and around in the prepared containers... Mushrooms originally were on a small rock, attached to the big rock, but I missed the time, when they migrated onto the big rock. And Reef Bones are not workable by tools: I spend 2.5 hours trying to divide the big rock in two small. Why the worst of all possible combinations always happen in my tank? (Sound of teared off hair.)

OOT:
I really like your signature. This is what I'm trying to do in the past 2 years. Good to know, that I'm not alone in this.

[graphixx]

if you can get a good sharp wood chisel (that is what I use when I cannot remove the rock from tank) the one I use is about an inch wide. just reach down in there and get under the shroom, a small amount of rock should be fairly easy to work free witht he shroom on it.

good luck

[dendro982]

Thank you!

[Limpit]

Instead of a wood chisel, get yourself a brick chisel, cutting board and a big hammer and bust up that rock!
Don't be shy, pound away till you are happy with the results.

[dendro982]

I'm not happy mostly with necessity of destroying aquascaping, setting heated 30g container with powerheads for keeping removed rock and corals there, while I'm working with the bottom rock and during restoring aquascaping (hours!)...

Lucky you to deal with the soft rock! Reef Bones (at least my package) are impossible to crack this way - I spent more than 2 hours at beginning, trying to divide rock just in one place, using everything suitable for the task.

I would rather remove them in the tank. I did the total aquascaping destruction twice, and will do whatever it takes to avoid this.

Thanks for the good intentions, anyway.

[Limpit]

If the rock is too hard to break maybe try a tile saw, they work wonders on fragging LPS.