encrusting to branching

[808Rob]

My thought for today while I was looking at my tank is, when do corals stop encrusting and start branching? For example, I started with a branch frag of a green slimer and it encrusted well, to the rock it was glued to and the one branch started an a shoot from the top but what starts other branches? It's starting to encrust the larger rock it's rock is attached too as well...

 

[SPSEMPIRE]

It depends on the acropora species, flow, and par rating. When I ran an ATI T5 fixture over one of my frag tanks, I noticed that the coral encrusted much faster than an identical frag tank with MH lights. The only thing that I can think if is that the spread is much better under T5 lights.

In your case, it is probably going to encrust for a while until it finds competition or runs out of horizontal space to grow on.

 

[808Rob]

Interesting note there because my lighting is t5s. My par rating at that level is about 170 as well.. I guess i'll need to change to LEDs..

 

[returnofsid]

Will have a lot to do with coral species, as well as tank conditions.

For instance, some SPS will encrust a lot, before branching, probably because they "know" they'll be "heavy" corals and need a firm foundation.

Other corals, such as Seriatapora hystrix, Birdsnest, will rarely ever encrust, at all, but will branch like crazy, quickly.

 

[808Rob]

Thanks for the info