Boney base growth of corals?

[mudbugmike]

Maybe this is a bit of a silly question but I couldn’t find that it’d been asked before. I have some of the caribsea liferock that has holes in it. I have the boney base of a torch stuffed in one of the holes and a Duncan in the other.

will these types of corals eventually break the rock from outgrowing the hole the base is in the liferock?

 

[Biokabe]

Unlikely, due to the way that corals tend to grow. Their skeletons don't grow in a swelling manner, like a tree trunk or a limb. Their skeletons grow by deposition; the coral polyps will secrete the skeleton "mix", which then hardens and expands the coral skeleton. Think of it like someone laying down concrete; you're not going to break a hole by filling it with concrete. Instead, if you overfill it, the concrete will just overflow the hole and start growing above the hole. As your corals grow, they won't push against their hole, they'll grow into it.

In short: The only danger to your rocks is if the coral gets so massive that it breaks the rock simply from leverage and mass, which is highly unlikely to happen.

 

[mudbugmike]

Unlikely, due to the way that corals tend to grow. Their skeletons don't grow in a swelling manner, like a tree trunk or a limb. Their skeletons grow by deposition; the coral polyps will secrete the skeleton "mix", which then hardens and expands the coral skeleton. Think of it like someone laying down concrete; you're not going to break a hole by filling it with concrete. Instead, if you overfill it, the concrete will just overflow the hole and start growing above the hole. As your corals grow, they won't push against their hole, they'll grow into it.

In short: The only danger to your rocks is if the coral gets so massive that it breaks the rock simply from leverage and mass, which is highly unlikely to happen.

thank you. I both learned something and slept a lot better last night. hope you have a great week.