Corals Placement

[Canadianeh]

I always have this thinking on the back of my head. How do one person place their all kinds of corals on their rocks and make sure they don't kill each other? In mature tanks, many of them have their rocks all covered with all kinds of rocks and they are very close to each other or touching each other.

What rules that I need to use before I affix LPS, SPS, and all of other corals onto my rocks? I only have a 40 gallons tank so space is precious, and I want my rocks fully covered with all type of corals.

 

[Kman]

In smaller tanks you need to factor in growth form. Since you don't have as much rock area you should stay away from corals that grow horizontal but corals that grow up into the water vertical. Stay away form corals the encrust or you will run out of room fast. I usually place corals a good way from each other so they can have a healthy base for attachment. Then you can prune as needed when the corals are growing up. You should select corals from the same family as they tend to sting each other less. But in time you will learn by experience what corals can grow beside each other and the others that can't.

 

[Canadianeh]

In smaller tanks you need to factor in growth form. Since you don't have as much rock area you should stay away from corals that grow horizontal but corals that grow up into the water vertical. Stay away form corals the encrust or you will run out of room fast. I usually place corals a good way from each other so they can have a healthy base for attachment. Then you can prune as needed when the corals are growing up. You should select corals from the same family as they tend to sting each other less. But in time you will learn by experience what corals can grow beside each other and the others that can't.

thanks @Kman! So branching SPS, LPS such as frogspwan, hammer, torch will be ideal then?

How about mushrooms, acan, montipora, reeftech starbust as they are on my wants list too?

 

[Franco]

For me, my sps when they come too close, I cut and make frags.... I don't have sps that they touch and like it.(Even my orange and blue montipora did not like to touch).

high: sps
middle: lps and zoa
bottum: mush and some lps

+1 to repply Kman But in time you will learn by experience what corals can grow beside each other and the others that can't.

 

[Canadianeh]

For me, my sps when they come too close, I cut and make frags.... I don't have sps that they touch and like it.(Even my orange and blue montipora did not like to touch).

high: sps
middle: lps and zoa
bottum: mush and some lps

+1 to repply Kman But in time you will learn by experience what corals can grow beside each other and the others that can't.

That is my plan too. high for SPS only, middle for LPS only, and botton/near bottom for zoa and mushrooms

 

[Kman]

thanks @Kman! So branching SPS, LPS such as frogspwan, hammer, torch will be ideal then?

How about mushrooms, acan, montipora, reeftech starbust as they are on my wants list too?

Those will work as you can easily frag euphyllia sp corals. But I find any monti will get out of hand quick. At first they will grow slow till they get to a good sizethen boom growth explodes. Even when you remove them they leave behind little pieces of themselves causing more issue. So you will regret the reeftech starbust\monti pretty quickly. If you really want one keep it low so the growth doesn't shadow the corals below it.

If you include mushrooms or even zoes you can keep small pieces of rubble or small removable rocks between the other coral and swap out or use them as frags to limit the encroaching growth on other corals. Slower growing things like acan can be controlled but they do have potential to sting anything down stream. Fragging sounds like a good option but the corals that grow fast it gets to be a huge pain quickly if you need to constantly cut them.