Mixing Marco Rock and Carib Sea Life Rock in new tank aquascape?

[chemchris]

As the title reads, I'm curious on everyone else's thoughts. My idea was to break down the 100 lbs of marco rock I just bought and reassemble into a HNSA (Habitat Negative Space Aquascape- basically an NSA with a focus on fish as well).

I have some old pieces of the dyed Carib Sea Life Rock that I was just going to leave out, but I won a raffle and won the Life Rock Reef Sea with Arches kit (#00358) and I feel its just too good to pass up now. I would avoid mixing the marco and CSLR in the same piece though and not break the CSLR down into rubble like the marco rock.

In the past I've done a muriatic acid bath to remove the outer layer of some rock (phosphate removal) and if I remember correctly, it removed almost all of that fake purple coralline color (which I actually like).

So my question is, should I go the same route again to a quick bath to try and remove the color from the CSLR? I dont feel like bleach would be strong enough. Another idea is to use that Purple Colorant on everything when I'm done. I've read my mixed results on how that comes out though. I know in 6-12 months everything will/should look the same anyway but thought if I could avoid that early ugliness with a few hours work up front, why not.

TIA.

 

[KrisReef]

Try lanthanum chloride. No purple will come off like the acid as it's not going to etch the calcium surfaces.

Put it in tap water
add excess lanthanum chloride
soak for a bit.
rinse and use.

Or
resoak in fresh water, test for phosphates (if not zero, retreat until zero.)

 

[chemchris]

Try lanthanum chloride. No purple will come off like the acid as it's not going to etch the calcium surfaces.

Put it in tap water
add excess lanthanum chloride
soak for a bit.
rinse and use.

Or
resoak in fresh water, test for phosphates (if not zero, retreat until zero.)

Thanks Kris! Im actually looking to remove the purple though, sorry I can see how my post wasn't clear.
Basically I have Marco rock (white) and the CSLR (purple) and would like to be able to make everything white or purple so I can utilize all the rock without mismatched colors.

 

[KrisReef]

Thanks Kris! Im actually looking to remove the purple though, sorry I can see how my post wasn't clear.
Basically I have Marco rock (white) and the CSLR (purple) and would like to be able to make everything white or purple so I can utilize all the rock without mismatched colors.

Well I got that backwards.

 

[MoshJosh]

Thanks Kris! Im actually looking to remove the purple though, sorry I can see how my post wasn't clear.
Basically I have Marco rock (white) and the CSLR (purple) and would like to be able to make everything white or purple so I can utilize all the rock without mismatched colors.

I say don't worry about it, soon enough it will all look the same.

 

[Rozier123]

Bleach will remove the fake purple from Carib Sea and real reef rock. Just soak for 2 days.

 

[SpursFan]

Unless you just want to waste time there zero reason to even contemplate that. Marco rock will turn brown in weeks and have better color in months assuming conditions are correct.