Pocillapora VS Cyphestra.

Squatch XXL

Well-Known Member
I have a cyphestra that is beginning to get near the base of a pocillapora...and it looks like the pocci is being killed in the area around the borders. I will go so far as to say that it is killing it.

Anyone else see this or have experience to confirm this sort of behavior?

I will be rearranging the rocks today....and what sucks is that both of these corals are affixed to my largest rock in my 40g. Thankfully it is at the top of the reef. I plan on removing the Pocci and relocating within the tank...The cyphestra & the large rock will be relocated to another tank.
 

Squatch XXL

Well-Known Member
Instead of relocating the Pocillapora you could just smother the Cyphastrea with some epoxy.
I do this all the time to keep a Leptastrea at bay.
The size and spread of it makes it less desirable in my tank. Seeing how prolific it is, I could see how it could overtake my whole tank in a few years. I thought about smothering it, but I would just as soon remove rocks....Which I ended up doing, and it came out well. If I didn't have another tank just doing nothing, I would have just let it happen...or smothered it.
 

Oxylebius

Well-Known Member
Some corals are more aggressive then others (with either sweeping tentacles that sting or chemical warfare called allelopathy). As much as we all try to read up and determine the aggressiveness of corals in determining where to place them in the tank, the type of behavior you are describing can end up happening when the corals grow into and around each other.

I have tried to keep my most aggressive corals away from my less aggressive corals as much as I can.

You have a couple of options as I see it:

1) allow the growth to continue. Break off a piece of the poci and transplant the frag in a different area of the tank. Watch to see how the two corals fight it out.

2) smother the area of the Cyphastrea (near the poci) with some epoxy as @frisbee suggests. I've done similar with monti encrusting corals will fairly good success, eventually they grow back and more smothering has to happen. Now part of 6 month maintenance for me is to target and smother encrusting corals where it needs to happen around the base of acros, etc. from all encrusting or monti cap corals.

3) Remove one the corals to a different location and allow the other to grow in the current location. Completely kill off one of them so that the other can grow. Before you completely kill off one of them, frag it so you can transplant to a new location.
 
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