SPS Gowth Encrusting Vs Vertical Growth
- Thread starter Joker79
- Start date
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tyler1503
2500 Club Member
I don't have much experience with SPS so take this with a grain of salt, but apparently it's a lighting thing. Too much light can lead to more encrusting as they have no need to reach up higher for more light. Also too much flow can change a growth pattern.
Zero Nitrates
I love chalices
My sps do the same thing. Would love to hear responses.
Bry
Well-Known Member
+1 this has been my experience.. Once they have a good base you should similar growth up
KologneKoral
Community Member
Branching is strongly influenced by water flow. If it is insufficient, the corals grow more slowly and do much less branching. Some corals will encrust heavily before growing upright strongly, but one typically sees growing points developing. Montipora digitata comes to mind.
Braves Fan
Valuable Member
I am fairly new to SPS corals and my tank has mostly all frags in it. Some of my frags have put down a large encrusting base and are just starting to grow up. Some of the frags haven't put down a larger encrusting base and are just growing thicker without much branching out and others are just branching out and skipping the thicker and encrusting out stages. I guess it just depends on the coral.
PaulKreider
Valuable Member
I have a LFS up here and the owner is a complete SPS freak, Has tons of sps tanks and a 450gal at home. He said the reason for this is flow. And he showed examples lol, in his 60g cube he has 4000gph of flow, those things encrust the size of bricks before growing out.
more flow- more encrusting
less flow- more outward growth
more flow- more encrusting
less flow- more outward growth
Rob&Gab
unregistered
Some Encrust for us some Grow New Stems. its weird. But we have one millie that is doing both at the same time and just startign to take off.
as well as our red planet its just shooting Stems everywhere now after encrusting 1.5-2"
as well as our red planet its just shooting Stems everywhere now after encrusting 1.5-2"
Genesis Corals
Genesis 1:21
My best educated guess for the reason most SPS encrust before going vertical is to stake out as much territory as possible. Once they bump into another coral or chemically detect that other coral they will start to branch. When a SPS encrusts they are using the rock as their skeleton, but when they branch they have to build their own. Also if you think about building a solar panel array, do you build it with one panel above the other panel or do you spread them out on a flat surface, which is more efficient for capturing energy. Why build a skyscraper when you can build a ranch. Again just an educated guess, no experiments or articles to back up my train of thought.
