Will SPS colonies ever grow themselves into unfavorable conditions?

[Eric Mio]

About 8 months ago I upgraded to a larger tank and took on the challenge of converting into an SPS dominated tank, and have had great success so far. I've absorbed a ton of information about sps husbandry along the way, but I have a question about their ability to control their growth. To what extent can they avoid growing into unfavorable conditions? (e.i. growing inches away from direct flow from power heads or return pumps, growing into area of low light, etc.) In your experience, do you find it better to frag the coral once you see it moving towards those situations or let the coral grow how it wants to? 

[GraffitiSpotCorals]

I try not to provide any areas that the sps won’t like and try and mount things so they won’t grow into the flow. Different species grow different ways so it’s really all species specific and comes down to how the flow is setup in the tank. I like to create turbulent flow with a lot of powerheads so the corals don’t start to lean one way or the other.  If an acro grows into lower light then it’s going to be happy there. They won’t grow into lower light unless they prefer it or can survive it and just have no other way to grow.  What you have to worry about is corals growing and taking up other corals light and or flow. That’s the hard part once you have large colonies all over the tank.