Coral War, can my digi take it?

[Gyr]

The rock I epoxied my green M. digitata to several months ago had a few green button polyps on it. The button polyps have since spread over the whole rock and are touching the base of the digi. The digi's polyps have died where the button polyps brush against it. I kind of like the look of the digi growing up from a mat of button polyps, and the injured/bare part of the digi is hidden by the buttons, so it doesn't 'look bad,' but I worry about other effects. My question is this, will the buttons only cause localized injury to the digi, or will the whole digi colony suffer. I wonder if the 'burned' area would make the whole colony vulnerable to disease/other problems. If so, should I just move the whole digi, burned part and all, or should I frag off the healthy part?

Here's a shot of the battle zone (sorry about the picture quality. My through-the-acrylic photo skills are poor).

Here's a little closer shot after I got the Button Polyps to close/retract a bit to show the burned part of the digi.

Thanks,

Kurt

 

[Reefmack]

I've had the same thing happen with some palys. In fact the palys eventually grew over and covered the whole branch of digitata. You might think about breaking off the top part of the digi and mounting it elsewhere.

 

[cbrownfish]

Agreed. Those button polyps are pretty relentless.

 

[BigAl07]

Ditto! Once they take off (happy ) they go crazy! the GOOD news is you should put some rock rubble on that rock and let the palys grow onto them. then sell them

 

[redsea reefer]

I also had some Paly's that took over the whole rock and killed 2 other coral in the process. I would relocate the Digi or frag off the healthy part.

Eventually all tanks go through coral warfare, interesting to witness but sad at the same time. When your tank is filled with coral and relocating or fragging is not an option, you just have to let nature take its course.

 

[Gyr]

Thanks for the advice, everyone. Fortunately, the digi was epoxied between the paly's rock and another one, so it was easy to move the digi away. I guess I'll just wait and see if the 'burned' base recovers, if it doesn't I'll just frag off the healthy part. It is amazing how fast those palys are spreading now. It was only a week or two ago that I first noticed they were brushing up against one side of the digi, and now they have overgrown the whole rock. A little mat of 4 or 5 polyps had even grown onto the coarse sand bed next to the rock. I like your advice about putting some rock rubble next to them for harvesting, BigAl. Get me some credit points at my LFS.
Thanks again, guys,
Kurt