What are the requirements to keep "soft" corals?

[superjohnny]

Just a few general questions about soft corals. There are a ton of topics and pictures of of softies, but what kind of lighting do they require? Are they purely photosynthetic or do they require feeding? If so, what kinds of food and how much do they eat? I know they can harm other corals, can they harm people as well?

It's about time for me to get my first coral and I'll probably get some zoo's just because they're easy to come by and I can use some education before I spend any real money.

[ski1297]

For the most part they are lower light than hard corals. PC, VHO, and T5 lights are all good for soft corals. You do not need MH. A lot are photosynthetic but there are some that you can feed. What kinds of food and how much food they need can change coral to coral. Some can harm people but 90% of the time you are going to be ok. If you have a open cut on your hand you would not want the coral to touch it. They can harm other corals. See my thread GSP kill. Zoos are a very good coral to start out with. They are very easy to keep.

[superjohnny]

Do zoo's need feeding? There is something in my head that thinks it's weird for "plants" to eat meat. That's going to be very difficult for me because my wife is a vegetarian and *hates* the smell of fish. When I plan out my tank I need to work around this constraint. Sorry Johnny, no sun corals for you.

[ski1297]

I have some yellow zoos that I do not go out of my way to feed. If some food hits them when I feed my fish they pull it in and eat it. But I do not spot feed them. What lights do you have?

[superjohnny]

I have a shop light with a 25w 6500k power compact spiral bulb over a 6g hoodless tank. Currently just 10lbs of live rock and a whole lot of algae. I've been out of town for the last ~30 days so I have no idea how it's going. When I was last home most of the brown algae had burnt off and was replaced with a nice thick mat of green algae. The tank was up and running for about 3 weeks when I left so after 8 weeks it should be fully cycled and ready for a goby, cleaner shrimp, some hermit crabs, a few snails and a zoo or 2.

I gotta say, it's one of the things I'm looking forward to most when I get home.

[superjohnny]

Here's a pic before I removed one of the shop lights:

[ski1297]

The lights you have should work good with zoos. When you were out of town did anyone look after the tank for you?

[superjohnny]

Yea I got a few jugs of top-off water. Other than that it probably won't have been touched. There is no livestock at this point... just a few aptasia. This pic was before the entire glass turned brown from the diatoms and then started turning green from the (unknown) algae. It'll be an algae ridden mess when I get home. Fantasy land for a few turbo or cerith snails.

[superjohnny]

Yea I got a few jugs of top-off water. Other than that it probably won't have been touched. There is no livestock at this point... just a few aptasia. This pic was before the entire glass turned brown from the diatoms and then started turning green from the (unknown) algae. It'll be an algae ridden mess when I get home. Fantasy land for a few turbo or cerith snails.

[tims]

Zoa's are a nice coral to have, you dont have tofeed them if you dont weant to. but you really might want to up grade the spril flo light buls to a noraml lighting system, those bulbs are in the 6500k or lower range. not sure how they will do with other types of soft corals.

Octocorals are pretty cool, they can be the meanest bugger in the tank or the sweetest looking. if you look at some of the various oceans you will find a mix of corals, softies and LPS,SPS growing next to each other. even though they ( soft corals) dont really need it all the time they are very much a "surf" coral also.

[thekid55]

soft corals are my favorite.