Acro basses at war - what to do?

[puckstopshere]

Hello! I have two acros that have recently taken off in growth and are now touching at their bases and throwing off fuzzy white mucus where they touch. I know they should be further apart, but I have a small tank and am willing to do some maintenance to keep them apart, if that’s possible.

The warfare started yesterday. Should I let them go for a certain number of days to see if they call a truce or should I chip away at the seam to separate them immediately?

I read about putting a line of epoxy putty in between that can be chipped off and reinstalled as needed to keep a line, I don’t hate that idea. Do I even need to chip them if I go the epoxy route or can I lay it directly over the edge. Anything else people do?

The actual touching of the bases is under a small ledge, which is the reason for the small mirror in the photo. Green is PC Rainbow, the other I never got the name.

Thanks in advance!

 

[KrisReef]

I generally let the war take its course and if I decide I don’t like how it is shaping up I will take action to support the winner I want. Sometimes they just fight in a line and don’t require any action to keep me happy.

Otherwise I may move one to another location where it can grow without any warring.

 

[puckstopshere]

This is what I was really hoping to hear. So letting them fight it out for a little bit, in your experience, doesn’t lead to anything immediately turning south?

 

[fishface NJ]

I generally let the war take its course and if I decide I don’t like how it is shaping up I will take action to support the winner I want. Sometimes they just fight in a line and don’t require any action to keep me happy.

Otherwise I may move one to another location where it can grow without any warring.

ditto.

 

[NeutronMan]

I lost a WD colony to an Angry Birds this way…

 

[Kactai]

I also always just let it go.... That being said, if one starts to die back and lose flesh up the base, you'll need to act quickly to frag the remaining good part of the coral and move the one losing the battle.... Most of the time they end up having a truce but not always

 

[Biff0rz]

I've sort of always been on the side of 'let it grow, they'll sort it out'....as of late i've found it's better to just intervene a bit. 2 mo ago I had a bunch of wars start with my sps, a lot of them touching. I ended up having to chop almost 6 of them (massive colonies) and some didn't make it. Even had some of them nuke in-place. So yea, I'd cut them early.

Now, I've also found a potential solution with mounting that could help elevate this issue but I'm waiting to get it and test it.

 

[KrisReef]

This is what I was really hoping to hear. So letting them fight it out for a little bit, in your experience, doesn’t lead to anything immediately turning south?

How is the war going?

 

[Thales]

Run some putty epoxy along the DMZ in the middle there, or build a short wall with rubble - or two side by side. As they encrust on it, harvest for frags.

 

[billyocean]

I was more interested in seeing the largemouth acro bass.

 

[Isaac Alves]

I'm curious how it went as well. This is a tough chore for me...if I let it go too long I get lazy and before I know it real issues start happening and I have to act fast and....then the hobby becomes stressful and not fun.

 

[IPT]

I had a blue Table start to STN on me. I had recently read another thread about someone who noticed STN on a piece that he attributed to chemical warfare between that and another encroaching coral.

I wanted to be pro-active so I used some kalk paste/solution and killed the leading edge of the one that was encroaching. The STN was arrested pretty shortly after that on my table. I have way to many frags in my tank so I fear this will be an ongoing battle I'll have to fight.

That said, I have a few other pieces nearly touching and they sorted it out themselves. Sometimes the leading edge just stopped encrusting out and started growing upwards!

 

[puckstopshere]

This is what I was really hoping to hear. So letting them fight it out for a little bit, in your experience, doesn’t lead to anything immediately turning south?

How is the war going?

Back under control, I think. The first thing I did was nothing. That wasn’t working, there was a constant stream of white mucus coming off, so I used a dental scraper to pull the PC Rainbow back, and that edge healed quickly and was fine. Not long after they were touching again, so this time I’ve put up an epoxy putty wall between them. Problem solved for now, and then when they climb the wall I can rip the epoxy off and put a new strip down. Better would be having a bigger tank but this is the plan until I have a better option.