what can be next to what?

[daniella3d]

Most sps will burn each other nastily. I had a few falling over and toutching another sps and burning in that area. It did regrow but they are aggressive.

I have a kenya tree that is toutching my montipora cap and the poor monti is just receiding in that area, leaving the room for the kenya tree. Strangly the montipora cap usualy produce a lot of slime when I toutch it or when micro algae toutch it but it does not do that with the kenya tree.

General rule, don't let any coral toutch any coral except for zoanthids, palythoas, mushrooms and ricordeas. Ricordeas actuanly love to toutch each other and they do much better when they can feel the others around them.

If you take 2 zoanthids of the same specie and put them side by side, they may even hybridize and create a new variety of a mix of both

When you buy a sps, leave it enough room to grown. Some really aggresive coral like elegance, torch, frogspawn, hammer, can also have sweeper tentacles that come out at night and some can be very long and burn other coral nearby.

Usualy coral of the same specie can toutch each other. I have a few birdnest toutching each other and no harm done.

Originally Posted by Milad

is there some kind of rule to what can be next to what in terms of corals?
seems like everyone is knowledgeable about this but me! did i miss a matrix somewhere showing this?

[Cubeman]

The suggestion of watching the tank at night and observing for sweeper tentacles is a good one. As the corals get bigger and closer you will often see the sweepers during the day as well.

If you are looking for 'general guidelines' on the relative agressiveness of different types of coral then J Sprung has a book with a 1-10 rating for each coral listed. Sorry I don't own the book so I can't give you the title.