Coral skeleton questions

[mpatterson42]

I was looking in the "discount" box at my LFS and found this cool looking coral skeleton and bought it.

I did a bleach cure for a few days to see what it would look like without all the green and a lot more of the underlying blue color came out.

So I have a few questions.

1. Is there anything I can do to get more of the blue color to come through? Maybe a short muriatic acid bath?
2. Is there any issues if I add this to my tank? I'm currently setting up a 40G tank, I plan to add the rock/sand/saltwater and cycling on Sunday. I don't know if I'll be done with this rock by then, so I might add it in a few days into the cycle. But if this isn't a good thing to put in my tank, or if I should wait until the cycle is fully done, let me know.

EDIT TO ADD: Tank is a planned Fish Only With Live Rock, so I'm not worried about coral placement, there's plenty of other CaribSea Life Rock if I change my mind later. Also going to be running a refugium in the sump for algae control.

 

[TX_REEF]

If you bleach-cured it, it should be safe to add. I wouldn't sweat the color too much, it will encrust with coralline or other types of algae over time anyway. One thing I will say is that looks like it will be a detritus trap with not much utility in a FOWLR tank. It might be good for smaller fish or inverts hiding.

 

[Tahoe61]

Blue Ridge Coral skeleton.