I have a Monti cap that will soon grow into another SPS pretty soon, the purple tipped acro to the left of the orange monti.
I have SPS impinging on one another elsewhere, and try to frag where it's easy so as to prevent loss.
My question is a general one; is this the norm, clipping here and there to avoid battles, or, do the most successful SPS collectors just let them go where they may?
IME I trim the heck out of my montis for this reason, I would trim that side place it in a drag tank or give it away.. Let the acros grow the way they want looks natural that way.
I usually trim when 2 different SPS start to grow into one another. What usually happens is that they alter their growing course and look cooler growing around eachother.
How are you going to trim it to make it look ok? Mine are way out of control and encrusting the rocks. I lost one acro frag and another 2 are threatened.
This is a topic I brought up last week in my local club's forum.
I'm a fan of the montipora spp. corals and I consistently have corals intruding on other coral's personal space.
Here's a copy of that post...
"Our reef tanks may be just a small slice of the abundant life found on the ocean's reefs, but this small space is still subjected to the issues that are found in nature. The issue that is the struggle for survival on the reef comes in many forms. One of the forms of this struggle is real estate. As corals grow out, they will often times encounter another coral neighbor and begin to battle for space. It's not always a polite neighborhood on the reef and often battles ensue.
This battle happens in our reef tanks.
As our reef matures and the corals grow larger, they will eventually encounter other nearby corals. Some corals have lethal chemical and biological attacks, while other corals will just assert their dominance over a weaker coral.
My reef is predominantly filled with montipora corals. These corals have a wide variety of growing styles; plating, branching and encrusting. As these corals grow (and they can grow quite quickly), they have the tendency to use their quick growing nature to their advantage and overgrow nearby corals.
Here's a pic from about two years ago that shows a frag of Montipora spongodes in the top left corner. This species has a compound growing from of an encrusting base that sends up branching tips.
Just behind this coral, you can just make out an out of focus frag of an encrusting montipora. I placed these two frags next to each other to see what the contrast in coloration would look like next to each other.
But over the past two years, the encrusting montipora has almost completely covered the M. spongodes; just a rim left visible along the top.
The encusting montipora does not naturally grow these branches, but it makes good use out the the original coral's growth.
You can even see that the encrusting montipora has now engaged the zoanthids in a battle for real estate. The montipora has started to grow over the top of the zoanthids causing them to be shaded from the light above.
Another example of the territorial battles that montipora corals engage in can be seen with these two plating montipora species.
Here a red M. hodgsoni and a different beige montipora sp. coral are growing into and over each other; fighting for the available light. The growing rims of these corals try to overlap the other coral's rim. These two corals don't actually grow onto one another to smother the other one. It's a dance that goes back and forth that creates some nice visuals.
The beige montipora coral has also engaged in a battle with the blue staghorn coral by wrapping itself around the base of the staghorn coral. It appears that the staghorn can fend off the montipora from attaching itself to the coral causing any real damage.
Here's an example of two different species of montipora; a Lilac M. capricornus (left side) and the Idaho Grape Montipora (right side).
Both of these corals started as remnants from previous colonies. The corals were still encrusting the rock shelf before developing their plating growth style. But as the two growing edges met, there came a standoff. Which coral was the quicker grower? You can see the two corals started growing vertically against each other in a race for dominance. The Idaho Grape Montipora took the advantage and has now started to plate out over the slower growing Lilac Montipora.
This last photo shows a very active battlefield for coral real estate.
This photo shows a few different examples of coral warfare exhibited by montipora corals. The easiest to see is the orange Montipora setosa that has started to grow up and around the green Montipora digitata. And right next to it, you can see the damage done by the M. digitata to the M. setosa from the white skeleton that is visible. Then to the right of that, that same green M. digitata has started to attach itself to a purple Acropora staghorn coral. But then even to the right of that, you can somewhat make out the damage done to the green M. digitata by the same purple staghorn.
Now if we pan out a bit and look at this location from above, you can see that this spot in my reef is very populated and colorful. But placing these corals close to each other results in battles that are waged daily as each coral colony is trying to gain the best real estate for itself.
And I haven't even mentioned the zoanthids, mushrooms, birds nest corals and the Forest Fire Digitata that are also engaging in battles in this location.
I did move the Oregon Tort to a somewhat safer and isolated point on the reef, but as time goes by I'm sure it too will become engaged in a battle of its own.
I just thought I would share what I have been witnessing in my own reef aquarium.
I'm tempted to step in and keep the corals isolated from one another, but that wouldn't make for a realistic looking reef in my view. I like the visuals that are created as corals grow into/onto/over one another and filling in the gaps between them.
Now I will step in when certain frags are in danger from a "lesser" coral, but I rarely do so.
These turf wars are that engaged by our corals are fascinating. It's just another small aspect of this hobby that I appreciate and I find amazing.
Thanks for reading.
If you have any photos showcasing the coral battles in your own reef systems, please share."
