When coral groth results in corals touching / being extremely close...

[Chocobo]

Hey guys!

So I've never had the issue of my corals getting 'too close' because I only had a few in my tank and they were all very far apart.

That said my new set-up I hope to have a lot more corals in there and there will come a time that they're overgrown / encroaching on each other.

What is the proper method to 'trimming' them? I'm wanting to learn what I can before I have to do this, so I'm prepared.

[ktownhero]

Originally Posted by Chocobo

Hey guys!

So I've never had the issue of my corals getting 'too close' because I only had a few in my tank and they were all very far apart.

That said my new set-up I hope to have a lot more corals in there and there will come a time that they're overgrown / encroaching on each other.

What is the proper method to 'trimming' them? I'm wanting to learn what I can before I have to do this, so I'm prepared.

There are different schools of thought on this. Some people keep them trimmed and tidy, some people like to let nature take its course and see what they end up doing. There's no right or wrong way. If you want to keep them trimmed then it might be a good idea to mount your frags on smaller rocks to sit on the larger rocks, that way you can pull them out for fragging when needed.

[ReefsandGeeks]

+1 on mounting them on smaller rocks so they can be removed when needed. I didn't do this, and now when my coral gets too large, I have a heck of a time trying to get to them, if I even can, to trim them. I've had to resort to just reaching in the tank and breaking off pieces without removing before because I couldn't get the coral out. It worked out, but was much harder to break the coral where i wanted, and ended up breaking some pieces I didn't want to in the process.

As far as fragging the coral, it depends on the coral. If it's hard coral like SPS, than you just take s pair of stainless angle cutters and cut them, then super glue the parts you cut to a frag plug or another rock to grow out. Soft coral are different, and I won't comment on them because I haven't personally fragged any.

[billdogg]

I buy only small frags, place them where I want them, and then let nature run it's course. IMHO, it looks way more natural than a bunch of carefully spaced corals spread around a tank.

This is the left side of my 120DT. Corals have grown together, around, and over each other.

[Chocobo]

I was more concerned with one coral killing another or taking over. If they can co-exist and come to a natural balance on their own I'm fine with that .

[Tripod1404]

To me this depends on the type of coral. I let SPS corals do whatever they want. They generally do not cause a lot of harm to one and other. Generealy winning coral just stops the growth towards it. If the corals are very closely related, like two montis, in rare instances I have seen them to almost fuse(most of the time if they are encrusting).

I dont move LPS corals unless one becomes very aggressive and start to show sweepers 24/7.

The exception is favias and corals like galaxia that are known to be very aggressive. These can kill a neighboring coral overnight, so I place these on their own islands.

Fungai are an odd ball because they dont sting other corals but produce a thick toxic slime that can be carried by the current and kill corals close by. In an aquarium this slime can end up and any random coral, just not the one close by. So I try to keep corals that can irritate a fungai away from it.

[d2mini]

I'm in the camp of let them grow out and do their own thing.

I'll keep lps (like torches) with sweeping tentacles as far away as I can from sps, but as far as sps goes, they can grow and figure it out for themselves.

[AlSimmons]

Just do a lot of homework beforehand and try to visualize how things will look/grow over time. Spacing, shading, which way the currents are flowing etc will all play a part in this. It's basically like putting a puzzle together. Sometimes the pieces will fit, other times they won't. All in all though if you plan on keeping your tank set up for quite awhile then corals touching each other is inevitable. GL.

[Northsidereef]

Let them grow, especially if they’re sps.

[ReefkeeperZ]

totally depends on the corals, I have definitely let the natures own decision in the the past just moving out colonies that are in danger of being over run, zoanthids and different encrusting corals are at the biggest threat for over running just because of their growth style they need square footage to grow. upright branching corals ten not to "take over" tanks Xenia and anthelia are not included in that description they spread by matting.

if you have particular corals that you want to protect or prevent from spreading using isolation rocks is a good idea, I just usually pull out whatever it is and frag it if it's growing to far or too fast.

as you can see in the picture here things tend to run wild over time, that tank was about 10-12 years old a that point and you'd be hard pressed to shoe horn in new corals without fragging/clearing space.

[Chocobo]

I would love to go with SPS but TBH I'm worried I will let the parameters slip. I don't think I will - but life happens.

I had all soft corals before and they did great. I honestly don't mind the work / staying on top of it.

I hope to have an Apex + Trident [once it's available] to help me monitor parameters and then ideally a DOS or 2 so that I can have it dose as parameters drop.

[Uncle99]

As mine grow, I am consistently tweaking their positions to:
-not allow them if possible to sting their neighbor......especially torches, Favias, etc
-give them some space to live without being bothered.

Corals just two expensive to have one kill another.