Mobile Bay Reef Keepers

Ok, at least from my experience, when a fight occurs between Acropora and just about anything else, the Acropora loses.
I thought this one was fascinating. The Acropora had grown a little too close to this Montipora, the neat thing is it wasn't even touching it.
Wish I could have gotten the pic this morning, it was much more pronounced.

Montipora spp. are pretty much the all around losers IME (well, them and Porites spp.). I have watched some Acropora attempt to digest some Pocillopora, only to have it retaliate (and win). They can be aggressive, but they don't always win. They mostly compete through shading.

Now that's interesting, I have noticed it the other way around. I couldn't tell, but I wonder which tried to digest the other first..I had assumed the Montipora had. It is just an observation of course, and does depend on the species of Montipora, but they just seem to grow around other species and go on.
I do agree with the outcompeting by shading, although I've found it helpful as well with lower light corals. I use a big Acropora Colony to shade the Red zoanthids down on the bottom of the tank, as they would be burned by the lighting without some shade.
Encrusting Porites I hadn't thought about, but it does seem they lose more often than not. At least in spots.

My Acropora millipora fell on a Montipora digitata once and burned the monti pretty bad.

James

Purple montipora cap versus Acropora "Green Bali Slimer", almost lost all the Monti. Had to get very heavy handed with the fragging.

Man, I miss that game.