Pruning my Zoas?

[fickle1]

So I got my first coral several months ago. It was just a few zoas stuck on a clam shell. I threw them in the tank and let them go. It started with like 15 of the green ones and just a few of the brown ones. Since then the brown ones have taken off and overrun my green ones. I tried to remove the shell they were on to "prune" off some of the brown ones, but it is pretty well stuck to the rock, which is in turn epoxied to my other rocks.

My question is can I prune off a bunch of the brown ones around the middle and just let them continue to migrate down the rock? If so, what would I need to do this. Where they are located, I don't have any access to the front of them, so I would have to go at them from the top. I pretty much know nothing about coral so feel free to speak noob to me lol

 

[heckeng]

It looks like the big ones are Paly's, and the small ones look like people eaters to me. I hate paly's for this exact reason, they are slightly bigger than Zoas and will overgrow the zoas. If it were me, I would try and dig underneath the green ones and cut some of them off so that you can try and start them on another rock by themselves. I would then throw those Paly's as far from my tank as possible--I realize most people will probably diss me for saying that though!

 

[Reef Bass]

Don't be afraid to move epoxied rocks. I have yet to meet glued together rocks that didn't separate surprisingly easily when that was desired. And they epoxy back together just as easily.

The same goes for glued and / or epoxied frags. Encrusted frags are another matter...