Coral Placement

[Rabidwolf]

May have been discussed before but looking for ideas on coral placement, when I view some established reef aquariums it amazes how they all look so crammed in and yet thrive so close together.

Looking for tips and pics of how placing different corals close together can work through how their growth structure etc

 

[Ranjib]

Think about three big aspects
- growth speed, which coral can be evasive and just outgrow others. Isolate fast growers
- think about light and flow requirements. Stuff like acros need more of both , while mushrooms need less of both. Not only think your current rockscape, but also how it will play out as the corals grow, they will shadow things beneath them . Type of light (pendant or bar) makes a impact
- think about aggression . Some corals (zoa) can be stayed together while others (chalices, encrusting montipora ) will take overs others. Some has sweeper tentacle and the flow direction in the tank will make a huge impact

Now think about your rockscape, light and flow setup (now and the once’s you’ll change in time ) and then imagine putting different corals in different place and simulate growing them out , u’ll see things fighting , shading or unused spaces in future, avoid those :-) . Sometime it means changing positions /locations of corals , sometime it means readjusting rockscape or flow while sometime it means just cant certain coral with given situation.
It will be lot easier to have specific , a given tank setup , with rockscape flow , desired corals etc and have specific discussion around it to illustrate this