When I was diving the reefs in Cozumel a few months ago, there's one particular reef called the Palancar Reef that is know for it's massive, gorgeous structures. You're maybe 60-80 feet down and you see these divine structures everywhere, and I had a realization. Say you have a 30ft tall structure with corals on top. It's all part of the coral. All 30ft of it, and then there's just a little bit of coral on top. It's kind of like a wildfire sweeping across the land. The only live part is that very frontier where the active fire is burning, yet you can see miles and miles behind the line of where it's been, and they're all the same.
The revelation I had was that death is a massive part of the survival strategy of corals. It's frustrating for us as reef tank hobbiest because we want these massive colonies in our tanks, and never want to kill anything, but it is what it is. The coral dies and redirects energy to where it is needed, which is that bleeding edge of growth. Essentially, success in growing them mandates you will kill most of it, because that's how they survive.
The insight wasn't anything that would help you grow corals better, but rather just a better understanding of corals and how they behave in their natural environments. I had a similar realization after seeing tangs in the wild. The debate between say a 4ft tank not being big enough for a tang but a 6ft tank is good is insane. These things swim miles every day on a massive reef. Even a 10ft tank is not enough for them. While some fish would be just fine in a tank, fish like tangs will never thrive, but rather, simply survive. Any argument about properly caring for a tang correctly should always be considered within the context that if you actually cared about the health of the fish then you'd never put it in an aquarium to begin with. Having said that, they're fish. We eat them for dinner, use them for bait to catch other fish to then eat that fish, etc. Fish don't die of old age on the reef, and everything eventually becomes food, so there's that to consider as well.
