How do you know what corals can go next to another

[john08007]

I have been in this hobby for a long time, i have never seen any type of guide as to what corals would hurt others and which can touch. Is there any general rule of thumb? For example, i had a brown star polyp that seemed to be pretty invasive, any corals it touched died. On the other hand ive seen different frogspawns intermingled.

 

[Dsekula]

There's really no guide it's mostly trial and error. As a general rule of thumb the closer related the coral is in genus and species the more likely you are to have success ime. I have a decent size collection of euphyellia so their my best example.. there are some torches that I can place next to just about any other euphyellia and have them coexist fine even though torches are supposed to be more agressive in general. I also have one frogspawn that will litterally extend sweepers 6-8" across the tank to search out and sting a specific torch but only that one. So I've found it's as much the individual colonies as anything else. My best method for success in having coral grow together harmoniously is letting them grow together vs forcing it. Basically starting with little or no contact and letting touching happen slowly and naturally as they grow.
If you have a specific set your thinking about placing close together you maybe able to get some better feedback from others experiences.

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