How do you deal with acroporas that encrust in the same rock and touch each other??

[sensei]

I have several acropora frags per rock. over time they will encrust and each frag will grow to colonies.
it is easy to frag colonies so branches do not touch each other but at a point in time the encrustment in the rocks of differentes acros will touch.
I am not sure if one will kill th eother one or what will happen.
can you please share your experiences of how to handle this situations

attached is a picture of two encrustments of 2 frags I move at a certain point in time. the frags did not make it but the encrustments atht were left behind are now beautiful ( not not really see the color in the photo) and are growing and about to touch. what would you do?



thanks a lot

 

[Dugless]

Typically acros aren't too aggressive and once two coral run into one another they don't cause too much harm. Usually they just stop growing at the point of contact and leave it at that.

 

[outssider]

I'd go ahead and let them touch. I've had many corals touch at the base. The one that has the more powerful sting will slowly push the other coral back/away. there will be a little algae form where they meet (where death occurs). most of the time it's practically a stand-off though with one gaining ground on the other very very slowly.

 

[DesertReefT4r]

I just let encrustings be to do their thing naturally.