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Gorgonian/Heliopora allelopathy?


ScooterTDI

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Has anyone else seemingly experienced a irritation/growth slowing in their sps after adding the gorgonian that was distributed during fragfest? I was getting great growth out of all my sps until I brought home the fragfest gorgonian and blue ridge coral. Now, my purple tort constantly has it's mesenterial filaments deployed and looks as if it will RTN at any moment. The purple Stylo and frogskin seem to have slowed their growth dramatically. Overall, my alk consumption dropped 25% in the days following these additions.

 

Does this sound like it might be allelopathy caused by the new additions? It's a small tank (12g), so presumably the chemical warfare would be more concentrated. I've been running carbon 24/7, but it doesn't seem to be helping much. Anyone else experiencing this or should I be looking elsewhere for the cause?

Edited by ScooterTDI
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One dude in this thread – who has a tank full of gorgonians – says that at least some species do chemical warfare. However, since he has so many mixed together, he can’t say which ones.

 

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/war-coral-trouble.383866/#post-4701837

 

 

However, I am interested. Do you have pics of the Gregorian? I remember it at fragfest, but I don’t have a frag.

 

( for those curious, the war coral was in another tank for a month, and then came back. It’s now a mostly as good as new and is growing quite well. However there is one spot that refuses to grow back. I’m wondering maybe if it was the flow or something like that. I did put activated carbon into the tank)

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Yea, I've occasionally heard that gorgonians can be particularly noxious, but I've also seen a lot of tanks with both sps and gorgonians living harmoniously. When I mounted the gorgonian, it was quite smelly, so I'd believe that it might be releasing some volatile allelopathic chemicals.

 

Here is a picture of the gorgonian:

Fragfest Gorgonian

 
Here is a picture of the suffering purple tort:

Purple Tort

 

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Hmm.. I have always had a bunch of gorgs in my tanks.. including 5 different one in my current tank.. however I don't have acros and have actually never had much success with them... could be related...

 

I have leathers, shrooms, zoas, lps and 6-8 different montipora all doing well...

 

Bunch of big gorg coloniesb5545977f528b6dd9af9064668fad55b.jpg

 

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

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That's my gorgonian, which grows in profusion in the 90 reef.  I have had it mixed with all sorts of Acropora over the years, and they have always been fine unless they physically touch.  A small twig of it certainly is not going to cause issues.  

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Yeah I remember that gorgonian.  It was a fairly big piece that we cut into like 15 frags.  (I packed most of those gorgonian frags). I disagree about the smell - it definitely had one, but I honestly think acroporas smell worse.........  :D 

 

 

(as an aside: thanks, mogurnda for donating it.  I almost took a frag, except that I am at my limit for soft corals)

 

Seriously, that looks like a Eunicea species.   Julian Sprung's (dated and not necessarily 100% accurate in its ratings; if only because it has too many genuses to be fully accurate down to the species and color type) guide to corals lists them as a "2/10" for aggressiveness.  Most Caribbean photosynthetic gorgs get 1/10 or 2/10 ratings, except Pseudopterogorgia, Muriceopsis (both 4/10), and Pseudoplexaura (3/10).  

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