Meetings.

[reefmutt]

Hey Guys..
I just pulled this post out of my build thread.
I guess I'm blowing my own horn, here, but I thought this was a cool little photo essay so I figured I'd post it here as well..
Hope you like it..

I had mentioned that several of my corals are encrusting into each other..
There have been some minimal warfare where one reaches out with a flurry of white mesenteric filaments which burn the other coral back a bit and then the winner encrusts over the dead, white skeleton of the looser. Sometimes very little happens.. Even when either corals' 'kill zone' meet. I call that 1/8 inch or 1/3 cm area around the base of an encrusting coral where everything (usually the corraline algea) gets pale from the coral burning its growth path..
Here's a shot where the coral on the lower right, burned and grew over the bonsai. It's probably about to burn the bonsai again and more forward..

Here's another shot where the bonsai (a different one) has won and is moving over the other coral.. You can see in a couple spots where the bonsai has its war filaments out..

In his case, nothing has happened yet. Both corals are encrusting quickly but so far they seem to have had a truce. If you look at the top, centre of this shot, you can see a light 'V' shaped area coming away from the encrusting line of each coral.. This is that kill zone I was referring to..

I think it's really cool how each meeting is slightly different..
This one is tough to see but the red/purple coral below won the exchange and is encrusting on the green coral.. That rounded area in the rim of the lower coral is where a bubble algea was growing. It was encrusting around the bubble until the bubble popped..

Here, my pearlberry seems to be just stopping at the other coral. It sort of looked like it was growing right over the base of the other one but in this pic, it looks like they have just stopped.. Not sure.. I'll watch this one because I want the pearlberry to win for sure!

The other one is growing much more quickly.. The branches are getting very close to the pearlberry but I don't want the pearlberry expending energy in defending its territory in the open water, so I will probably be trimming those branches off the other coral..