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View Full Version : Coral warfare what do you do?


lhm nole
04/14/2015, 02:22 PM
on year 3 of my reef tank and all the small frags are no longer frags and starting to have chalices killing my encrusting bonsai sps .. Pavanos coming close to blastos's and lobo's trying to eat me favias.. Problem is corals all encrusted onto rocks and they are getting huge so should I move them or just let the strongest survive no way of taking rocks out and breaking them into sections..Any trade secrets out there to help keep this from happening?
To the the newbies leave plenty of room for growth lol

Azedenkae
04/14/2015, 03:25 PM
on year 3 of my reef tank and all the small frags are no longer frags and starting to have chalices killing my encrusting bonsai sps .. Pavanos coming close to blastos's and lobo's trying to eat me favias.. Problem is corals all encrusted onto rocks and they are getting huge so should I move them or just let the strongest survive no way of taking rocks out and breaking them into sections..Any trade secrets out there to help keep this from happening?
To the the newbies leave plenty of room for growth lol

Either/or. It's up to you. :) If you want to let nature take its course, then let it be. Personally I wouldn't if there was anything in particular I really like that may die (in which case I'd save it any way I can). But otherwise just make sure that if something dies your filtration system can deal with it. Moving encrusted corals take time and effort after all.

cloak
04/14/2015, 03:29 PM
Depending on the coral, sometimes you can manipulate the growth with epoxy. Just as an example, if it's encrusting on a rock just smother it. I do this all the time to both a Sunset montipora & a Leptastrea.

m0nkie
04/14/2015, 04:12 PM
time to frag and make some money!

billdogg
04/14/2015, 04:59 PM
I let them be as much as possible. There is a chalice that is after the Monti next to it but the powerheads help push the sweepers away.

snorvich
04/14/2015, 06:36 PM
I kept a lot of room in between corals, especially those known to be aggressive. For encrusting corals, as mentioned above, they can be deterred by judicious use of reef putty. There are some corals that I never collect due to the long sweepers (and I have 8 foot tanks).

lhm nole
04/14/2015, 08:36 PM
Thanks guys think I will try the putty idea and build barriers

CuzzA
04/15/2015, 03:50 AM
Putty, glue rock rubble between corals to create a barrier/wall. The use of flow as mentioned can help. I have a chalice next to a tricolor acro, but I adjusted the powerhead slightly to eliminate any sweepers from touching the acro. Same goes for my torch. A small Koralia 425 behind my rock work blows through a void in the aquascape and keeps the torches tentacles forward away from acros and montiporas.