Softies and zoanthids

[FishWife]

idea: I have really fallen in love with this tank for a number of reasons: TOTM in 2004

 

What I like:

*Ease of "doability" -- seems these softies would be more forgiving than SPS.

*Colorful and interesting (I like motion and color better than the "tree branch" look of acroporas anyways)

*Easier to maintain long term, week to week

*Cheaper: less light needed, etc. We currently have all we need to do this tank right.

 

Questions:

 

1. Aside of personal taste, anyone see any problems with heading this direction?

 

2. Can I keep my frogspawn?

 

(Thinking of "agressive" chemical warfare. So far, it's pretty isolated from everything else and the green star polyps above it seem to be holding their own about 5" away... how close can things get to it eventually?)

 

3. Should I lose my hammer coral?

 

(This one has already stung some flower leathers that I got too close -- which wasn't very close... 10" away! At least, that's what I think 'cause it shriveled up and turned blue--looked totally dead-- after doing well for over a month in a different place. We moved it to the far right of the tank and now it's good. See how close they were(n't) below! The yellow polyps aren't doing too well, either, since the hammer arrived as a salvage from Ryan's tank crash.)

 

 

I have a yellow leather coral. In the front, center, in pic. below... doing GREAT in its upflow position about ten inches from the frogspawn.

:

 

Are they agressive?

 

TIA for all responses!

Edited November 26, 2007 by FishWife

[davelin315]

My first concern would by why the hammer and the frogspawn are so bleached! Other than that, I see no problems in keeping things together, just make sure you use enough carbon and do enough water changes to filter out the toxins they release and you'll be fine.

[treesprite]

Make sure the hard corals aren't down stream (flow) from the softies.

[Guest NSC]

Marcia and Scott

You can keep both the hammer and frogspawn in that tank with anything you plan to keep. Yes the frogspawn is bleached(came from carribean Jakes tank)...the torch is actually exactly the same however as I received it(from chris aka Phisig, james also got a head from the same colony), then passed it to Marcia and Scott. I noticed however that both the corals were in exactly in the same location, are you trying to decide which to keep? Or if you want to keep either? Let me know, I would be happy to re-locate either one, with refund of course!

[davelin315]

Make sure the hard corals aren't down stream (flow) from the softies.

 

I don't think that will make much of any difference, if any. Soft corals do not sting and do not have sweeper tentacles. In a closed system, no matter how large or small (OK, a really large system would have an affect), the chemicals they release are going to very quickly disperse and be part of a homogenous solution in the tank. In this case, I think that more tank turnover from the sump to the main display is what is called for, versus an sps tank which could have more flow in the display due to closed loops or powerheads. The rationale I am taking here is that the more water you have going to your sump, the more water you have being filtered by chemicals. This in turn would help to keep the water cleaner and chemical free, versus in an sps tank where your goal is more to keep detritus suspended in the water column and keeping it from settling on corals. The considerations for a soft coral system versus a hard coral tank are very different.

[vaironman]

Could it be the frogspawn and the hammer bleach due to not enough wattage of lighting system?

[treesprite]

I don't think that will make much of any difference, if any. Soft corals do not sting and do not have sweeper tentacles. In a closed system, no matter how large or small (OK, a really large system would have an affect), the chemicals they release are going to very quickly disperse and be part of a homogenous solution in the tank. In this case, I think that more tank turnover from the sump to the main display is what is called for, versus an sps tank which could have more flow in the display due to closed loops or powerheads. The rationale I am taking here is that the more water you have going to your sump, the more water you have being filtered by chemicals. This in turn would help to keep the water cleaner and chemical free, versus in an sps tank where your goal is more to keep detritus suspended in the water column and keeping it from settling on corals. The considerations for a soft coral system versus a hard coral tank are very different.

 

 

Hmmm.... I was going by a lot of stuff I've read that say that because of the toxins.

[FishWife]

I don't think that will make much of any difference, if any. Soft corals do not sting and do not have sweeper tentacles. In a closed system, no matter how large or small (OK, a really large system would have an affect), the chemicals they release are going to very quickly disperse and be part of a homogenous solution in the tank. In this case, I think that more tank turnover from the sump to the main display is what is called for, versus an sps tank which could have more flow in the display due to closed loops or powerheads. The rationale I am taking here is that the more water you have going to your sump, the more water you have being filtered by chemicals. This in turn would help to keep the water cleaner and chemical free, versus in an sps tank where your goal is more to keep detritus suspended in the water column and keeping it from settling on corals. The considerations for a soft coral system versus a hard coral tank are very different.

 

OK, now I'm confused. I thought LPS's DID have sweeper tentacles? Here's just one quote from a website:

 

"As noted previously, the relative aggressiveness among coral species varies. Consequently, when setting up a tank, adequate space, which is invertebrate free, should be given around each coral head.

 

For LPS (large polyp stony) corals, this zone should be at least 15 cm in all directions, as sweeper tentacles have been reported to be at least this long (Sheppard, 1982). The distance between SPS corals does not need to be as great; a distance of 5-8 cm is usually sufficient. "

 

If not (how can I doubt the secretary...?) what do you guys think happened to our flower leather? Here are before and after shots: See the flower leather left of center? Shares a rock with a mushroom. We got this rock just this way from BK Market two months ago. (The mushroom is hard to see in this shot; it's on the right, on the rock's surface, going downhill from the Leather. No problems until last week:

 

 

Last week it just CRUMPLED. We took it out, put it in our fuge for two days... no change. Yesterday we put it into the extreme other end of the tank. Here's how it looked then (rock turned so you can see the 'shroom now. Note the tips are white: I've read on the same website quoted above this:

 

"In reaction to nearby corals, the large tan mushroom coral in the middle has concentrated its poison in the white ends of its tentacles." Here's the URL for the pic and quotes: http://www.peteducation.com/article.cfm?cl...;articleid=2955

 

And here's the "after poisoned (by whatever means)" shot:

 

 

Leather has a sick BLUE color (was pink) and is shriveled to 1/4 its former size (the second shot is a close up so don't be fooled).

 

TODAY, after 36 hours back in display tank lights and in the far right corner of our tank, this flower leather is back to almost totally recovered.

 

Our tank turnover from upper and lower manifolds, that ALL goes thru our sump (no closed loop) is 12X/hr or so. We have a 6-bulb array of T-5's from Jason. We also ran carbon all last week.

 

So, who done it, d'ya think? Ideas?

Edited November 26, 2007 by FishWife

[davelin315]

LPS do have sweeper tentacles, I believe that Forrest was referring to soft corals and the toxins they release into the water flow. An LPS could feasibly damage a soft coral that is downstream from it because of the flow carrying the sweeper tentacles to the coral. In the case of your coral, sometimes that just happens. My thoughts are to add some carbon to see if this clears up the tank.

[lanman]

That TOTM is pretty amazing! Shows what you can do, even if you limit yourself to a couple of species.

 

bob

[Lee Stearns]

Be careful with the yellow colony in the middle of the tank- It will spread

LPS and Softies should be fine together-

Large leathers should probably be kept out of SPS dominant tanks, devils hand, finger leather, cabbage, and toad stool if they are very large- That being said if you keep the toad stool small I have not noted any major impact on an SPS dominant tank-

T5s can sometimes be too bright for good zoanthid growth- so keep them at the very bottom, and then sometimes in some shade.

The green and tan large hairy mushroom- will eat pellets and efficiently use what ever light it gets- It too can become almost pest proportions as they grow to the size of a dinner plate and squeeze out many other corals from their territory

A soft coral and LPS tank can be one of the most maintenance free reef systems you can build.

[FishWife]

Be careful with the yellow colony in the middle of the tank- It will spread

 

THANKS for the encouragement. I really find I prefer the motion and color of softies, and we seem to be inept with keeping water stable, tho I guess we're still learning.

 

So... frag the frogspawn??? How?

[Brian Ward]

I don't think I'd frag the frogspawn - I like the look of the large colonies. If you do want to frag it, it's quite easy, just cut the hard stalk under the head you wish to remove. Pictures and details:

http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-11/fotm/index.php

[vaironman]

With 6 bulbs of T5 in a medium size tank, the frogspawn might also be bleached due to the strong lighting (instead of not sufficient light as I original thought), you might want to try to move the frogspawn down to the bottom or near the bottom section of the tank to see if the frogspawn' s color comes back. It'll take a while to know if the color is back or not though.

 

KLee

[zotzer]

the frogspawn might also be bleached due to the strong lighting (instead of not sufficient light as I original thought),

 

She "adopted" it in this condition (ie: bleaching was not caused by her own tank conditions). I am sure she'll get it to color back up.

 

Tracy

[FishWife]

She "adopted" it in this condition (ie: bleaching was not caused by her own tank conditions). I am sure she'll get it to color back up.

 

Tracy

 

Thanks, Trace... though, it's hard to follow the details sometimes, so... question for y'all:

 

We've been feeding silversides to our 'nem (he's doing MUCH better now that he's eating ) and a small piece accidentally landed on one of the heads. It SEEMED to engulf it; and today, it's more colorful than other stocks. Should I be feeding this coral with meat?

 

ALSO, some of its tentacles have a brown stuff... like, leftover slime? Just a touch... on just some tips... what's that?

[davelin315]

Brown jelly is a sign of decaying flesh. Blow it off and see what the damage is below. If the thing looks like its receding, the brown jelly is a sign of death around the corner. It could also be from a severe sting from something else, but typically it turns into brown jelly when it's dying off.

[FishWife]

Brown jelly is a sign of decaying flesh. Blow it off and see what the damage is below. If the thing looks like its receding, the brown jelly is a sign of death around the corner. It could also be from a severe sting from something else, but typically it turns into brown jelly when it's dying off.

 

My post above was badly worded. The NEM is fine. The fish piece fell on the frogspawn. The brownness started a few days ago, though... the frogspawn has got a lot of motion from the flow, so I don't think this decay would "blow off." It does LOOK like decay, though... or possibly algae growing on the coral's surface??? Does that happen?

 

If it IS decay, what can be done? A dip? Cutting off affected tentacles?

 

And, why? I think almost everything's good in our tank... maybe too much light is all... but we actually reduced the photoperiod over a week ago. Now they get 11 hours/day just actinics and 10 with the full array.

Edited November 27, 2007 by FishWife