Corals to close with branches intertwining

[Lavey29]

So I am new to SPS with my start maybe 10 months ago. I bought a lot of tiny 3/4 inch frags and placed them in all available spaces at the top of the tank. I placed them fairly close together because I expected a lot of die off as I learned more about SPS care. Well 10 months later and out of 38 frags only 1 loss. The majority now are mini colonies with 5 to 8 inch spreads.

My dilemma is that since I placed them close together the branches are all starting to intertwine and fight for space. I am wondering how I should approach this problem? I know I can frag off branches and reduce the coral size range but I really want the tank to fill up with big SPS colonies. I can't really move corals around because I don't have a large tank and they are really encrusted to the rocks now.

So will nature handle this on its own and the corals will each find their space? Will stronger more potent SPS sting other corals to kill them for space? Can SPS just all intertwine together without issues? I know shading can impact stuff.

I should have got a bigger tank to start with. I think I'm going to end up with an over crowded mess now that doesn't look good astetically and isn't healthy for the corals long term.

 

[KrisReef]

Pick your favorites and stump cut the others. It's like "Natural Selection" except you get to be the Mother in the story. Congratulations on your huge success. Remember this next time someone talks about how they would like to be successful, even that creates new problems like your current overflow of frag colonies.

Another thing, I would be honored greatly if you would send some of your newly clipped colonies to me! Success makes you popular too> Well done.

 

[Lavey29]

Pick your favorites and stump cut the others. It's like "Natural Selection" except you get to be the Mother in the story. Congratulations on your huge success. Remember this next time someone talks about how they would like to be successful, even that creates new problems like your current overflow of frag colonies.

Another thing, I would be honored greatly if you would send some of your newly clipped colonies to me! Success makes you popular too> Well done.

I guess this makes sense but to be clear, I wasn't starting with all the fancy colored acros. I picked easy corals like stylos, monti digi, birdsnest ect....

So fragging or stumping as you recommend, after you trim branches off do you need to iodine dip the primary base coral to prevent infection? Can you frag branches off without removing the coral from the tank?

 

[MtnDewMan]

Survival of the fittest! haha ... good luck

 

[KrisReef]

Yes, they will fight among themselves and the best one suited for the space will eventually crowd out its neighbors, growing over them and shade them to death. The problem with that is that they pick the winners and you might regret for not selecting your favorites. It’s a good problem to have imo.

 

[Lavey29]

Survival of the fittest! haha ... good luck

Thanks for sharing this. Do you do any coral gardening there or just let nature take its course? I'm not quite that dense yet but will be at some point.

 

[shandoee]

Frag and sell!

 

[MtnDewMan]

Thanks for sharing this. Do you do any coral gardening there or just let nature take its course? I'm not quite that dense yet but will be at some point.

That was my tank years ago. I trimmed it up, traded frags back in the day. I liked how they grew together though, so only fragged when one was becoming too evasive or started growing out of the water

 

[Dburr1014]

I let mine fight it out. Surprisingly, they keep up with each other. Still growing at the tips. Growing out and away from each other.
You can trim or let nature take its coarse.
Me personally, I don't like to trim with bone cutters. I have cut a branch and knocked the whole colony off the rock before.

 

[Lavey29]

I let mine fight it out. Surprisingly, they keep up with each other. Still growing at the tips. Growing out and away from each other.
You can trim or let nature take its coarse.
Me personally, I don't like to trim with bone cutters. I have cut a branch and knocked the whole colony off the rock before.

Yes knocking off a rock is a big concern but aren't you supposed to iodine dip branches you cut off or are cut from to prevent infection? I've never fragged before except accidentally breaking stuff off or a fish breaks it.

 

[Lavey29]

Another observation, have you guys noticed when you have SPS close together and one really starts to spread and grow, the long time dormant one next to it comes alive and starts spreading to for its territory?

I've got a couple acro frags mid tank that don't really get enough light and have hardly grown in many months. My zoas have surrounded them and looked like they were going to cover them. Now all of a sudden the SPS frags have really encrusted and pushed the zoas back and are starting vertical growth.

 

[Lavey29]

Basically I left 2 to 4 inches between frags on the rocks thinking I would have some die off frags and I should have left 4 to 6 inches of space. I guess I'm going to have to try and remove some as suggested above and get some credit from my LFS.

 

[Dburr1014]

Yes knocking off a rock is a big concern but aren't you supposed to iodine dip branches you cut off or are cut from to prevent infection? I've never fragged before except accidentally breaking stuff off or a fish breaks it.

Never dipped in iodine. This is my first hearing this.
I only dip incoming coral.

 

[Lavey29]

Never dipped in iodine. This is my first hearing this.
I only dip incoming coral.

It's only for infection not pests

 

[Alexopora]

I guess this makes sense but to be clear, I wasn't starting with all the fancy colored acros. I picked easy corals like stylos, monti digi, birdsnest ect....

So fragging or stumping as you recommend, after you trim branches off do you need to iodine dip the primary base coral to prevent infection? Can you frag branches off without removing the coral from the tank?

You can frag branches without removing the coral. Your bonecutter/fragging tool will have to go scuba diving.

I generally dont iodine dip any of my frags. Just snip, glue on fragplug and place them back into the water. In a few days, I’ll be seeing new growth.

Montis and pocilloporidaes (pocis, stylos, seriatopora) are among the hardiest and easiest to frag. They heal fairly easily as long as your water is pristine. Which should already be the case in order to keep your sps. Another robust sps would be porites, but those are pain to frag since their skeletons are so dense. So its easier to glue dead coral skeleton (preferably those of thin branching sps like seriatora) to the porites and let them encrust. Then snap that branch off once they have fully encrusted it.