This is something the reef tank community has been using for years, in fact there are whole businesses built around the practice of fragging and selling corals... to the point that there is already equipment made for this purpose.

From "frag tanks" built wide, long, and shallow to allow light to have an easier time reaching the corals, to "frag plugs" made from ceramics that allow people to glue coral frags to to slot into existing rock, egg crate, etc.

I think maybe the accidental discovery was that the researcher found that this very common procedure to cultivating aquarium corals ended up also promoting the growth speed too.

Well dime size is generally smaller than most hobbyists frag. Obviously fragging coral is done rather often in the reef tank hobby, but usually for the purpose of trimming growth, aquaculture, and sharing colonies.

Plus, Ive been in the hobby for 8 years, and I’ve never heard of purposely placing frags from the same colony next to to each other so they fuse.

I’m unaware of anyone studying the impact of fragging specifically on growth rate in this way.

Edit: I’ve found some discussion of at least one reef hobbyist experimenting with the method based on this research. So yes this was somewhat novel.

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/my-microfragging-sps-exper...

Ok, we've replaced that bit with the name of the technique above. Also, if someone can find a better article about this, we can change the URL. The current article is short on information and looks lifted from other sources.

It's from 2017, but this article is more informative and discusses the accident that led to the discovery: https://scienceline.org/2017/03/fight-save-coral/

This article mentions that he accidentally discovered this in 2009... here's an article from 2006 mentioning fragging https://www.advancedaquarist.com/2006/3/aafeature3 that also mentions that folks were doing it in the 90's

I think the thing that isn't being covered in these articles is that it's the fusion of these fragments that are what is resulting in the explosive growth. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4614846/

It sounds like you can fragment a larger coral, put them close together, and as they grow they'll actually fuse together, instead of competing, and becoming sexually mature much sooner.

Typically speaking, and based off a very small amount of experience of my own keeping a nano coral tank years ago, coral of the same type (zoanthids of different colors in my case) would run into each other, compete for the same space, and sometimes kill or drive back the other.

Ok, we've changed to that from http://www.theoutliar.com/2019/01/19/marine-scientists-accid.... Thanks!

The accident is explained in the video: https://youtu.be/qHKpcnn5Tws?t=202 (starting 3:23)