SPS - Monti Question?

[brannock_16]

Hello Everyone,

I am interested to know if a red monti cap were to touch a rainbow monti, if it could cause tissue recession on the rainbow monti?

The reason I ask is because my red monti cap has grown to the point where it is touching my rainbow monti frag and I noticed that the rainbow monti frag has had some tissue recession where they were touching.

Is this just coincidence or is it chemical warfare? Since I moved the red monti cap away from the rainbow, should the rainbow recover?

Thanks in advance for your help and input.

Robert

 

[Reef Bass]

In general, when two "not the same" sps corals touch, they usually engage in a stinging battle and one will kill the other, at least at the border of the two. Typically it can look like a mucusy white zone. Not pretty.

Sometimes two corals will coexist, or wind around each other, but that is the exception. Some people have been successful getting different colored (but same species) monti caps to grow together.

Chemical warfare is usually applied to soft corals who produce toxins which are excreted directly into the water. They are not stinging each other, they are trying to poison each other.

So yes, most likely the two different montis touching is the problem and will continue until one is dead or they are separated.

 

[dholic]

Assuming both corals are healthy, my money is on the Rainbow Monti killing the Cap where they touch and eventually growing on the Cap's dead skeleton. As Reef Bass stated, it will not be chemical warfare that kills one but physically stinging each other. I have a Rainbow holding it's own against an Acro Milli. The Cap will try to grow around the Rainbow and eventually shade it. Problem the cap has is the Rainbow is typically a fast grower.

Watch the tank at night, maybe 1/2 hour after the lights go out(or later if your awake) and look to see if the Rainbow is displacing it's mesentery filaments onto the Cap in the area they are touching.