How close can coral be to another??

So right now in my 29g, im running out of room for coral!!! AND IT STINKS! But anyway, i have these two large colonies of candy cane, two larger colonies of zoas and some kenya tree and xenia that im worried about. They are the ones that are getting close to eachother, the kenya tree is about 4 inches away from my candy cane and the xenia is about 7 inches away from a devils hand i have(small 1" frag) But they arent that big, just mostly small frags. IM worried that like they will start fighting soon, and i dont want to frag anything. I run carbon all the time also which should help, but will they be okay?

 

The corals you described are fine as long as they are not touching. Actually, a lot of soft corals seem to be able to touch even, I think the Kenya tree would be ok brushing the devils hand a bit. The xenia will overgrow everything though, personally I don't understand why people like to keep this. as your reef matures it seems to either die off, or become invasive. You'll likely either have to trim whenever it approaches the other corals, or isolate it, but it's tougher to isolate than GSP, as it can detach and recolonize elsewhere.

 

Xenia is a dirty coral, the dirtier the water column to more it grows. In pristine water the coral grows much slower (acceptable levels that is)

What you have is ok to be close – it’s the corals with sweeper tentacles that will get you. Often times at night when you are not looking at your tank is when many corals change. Look at a bubble coral during the day and then at night any you might be surprised to see the bubbles transform into sweeper tentacles. Fascinating really.

 

theres no set area of space some people stack corals ontop of each other with no problems some people have them 8 inchs away and still have issues every tank is different

 

Alright thanks for info.

As for the xenia, im wanting it to grow as fast as possible, same with my GSP..

I dont mind fragging it up, that is the main reason i bought it, to frag it up and sell it every now and then..

Here are my params.

Nitrate-15ppm
Ph-8.1-2
Alk-8
Salinity-1.024
phosphate(not realy sure, dont have a test for it)

And i do weekly 10g water changes.

 

Your right there are no hard and fast rules regarding placement of corals with regard to both sweeper tentacles and chemical welfare. With that said very few corals can "placed ontop of each other" unless you are referring to corals such a ricordia, zoanthids and some soft corals. If you attempt to keep many stoney corals within close range of each other you can pretty much expect significant issues. I constantly see issues with the defense mechanism in my tank and moving corals to prevent damage to them. Some LPS such as Hydnophora will kill another corals quickly even if the corals is not directly in physical contact. I see wars going on among my acropora and sps all the time resulting in tissue dying.

 

okay..I dont plant plan on keeping SPS, my lighting is not strong enough, but most of my LPS are not near any coral due to stinging..But my soft corals are the ones close to eachother really.

 

Yeah, I mostly agree, with Cheryl, although I don't like the term "chamical warefare" as I think it is misleading Regardless, though most LPS hard corals need space. Soft corals typically don't so much. Occasionally there is an exception. In my old 75, there are some large 11" mushroom corals that tend to expand and sting anything, anywhere close, but most seem to be ok, almost on top of each other.

As to LPS corals, they may look harmless, but looks can be deceptive. Check out this stunning image BeakerBob posted on RC. You often, just can't trust LPS corals when the lights go out

 

Thats a cool pic! But stinks for those polyps..

And i get what your sayin..I think as long as I keep the xenia trimmed it should be okay.

 

Sort of, but you'll want to keep them trimmed way back. If they creep up and you trim them, there can still be little bits left in the rock that will regrow. Also, they can detach and float around and recolonize elsewhere. I had some back when I had my 55g growing, and colonies would pop up on the other side of the tank once and a while. If they pop up somewhere you don't want them you may need to kill them with Joes juice or some kalk past.