Coral Mixing questions...

[jeepjon]

My 15 gallon nano reef is starting to finally stabilize after my last incident...I am trying to plan out what corals I really would want in my tank...the problem is I realize that it is a mix of soft and Stony corals...I would like the showcase to be some really nice acros and some good Tridacnids, but I would also like to add some Green Star Polyps on the ends of the tank, along with some mushroom anemones and maybe some zoanthid polyps as accents to my centerpieces. Will merely carbon and skimming remove the terpenes and chemical competitors that the soft corals release? I don't want the growth stunted on my SPS at all...any thoughts would be great. Thanks!

[bamann345]

That is what I have in my tank and I have seen no ill affect of keeping both. I do not run carbon or a skimmer however.

[OodleyBoodely]

The worst effects if any from terpenes would be from the mushrooms to the acros. Just keep the 'shrooms well away from the acros and keep a close watch on the health of the hard corals. Star polyps and zoas can potetially overgrow everything in the tank -again keep far from the acros.

[jeepjon]

I may just keep them away from each other and run my carbon and skimming. I always liked those corals as accents...they're easy to keep and they look good. Especially as an accent for some nice acros and tridacnids!

[jeepjon]

there's only one real way to check if it will work, and that is adding the corals together!

[ckreef]

Jeeping --- I have a very mixed Minibow 7 ---- approx 12 or so SPS, 4 LPS, and 14 or so softies. Most are fairly small but growing. A few things to note about having an extreme mixed reef in a Nano.

Acro's really need MH lighting to work well --- there are a few that will do OK but most need MH. I would stay away from Acro's especially if you have to purchase your frags --- if you get them for free then you might consider experimenting.

There are plenty of other SPS corals that will work well under decent PC lighting.
Fire corals (not a true SPS),
Star corals,
Montipora digitata,
Montipora Capricorns,
Turbinaria corals,
Hydnophora corals (but they have sweepers) just to name a few good ones.

Most LPS work just make sure they don't have long sweepers.

Depending on what happens in the tank the corals can slime each other fairly bad in such a small environment. A water change can sometimes cause this especially if you do a good cleaning at the same time. Although I have not had any global tank problems because if this I have killed an individual coral or two in the past. I have one coral now that has a white spot due to slimming from another coral --- it looks like it's going to recover OK but it will take some time.

Zoo's can take a lot of abuse from other corals so they work well for putting in between two incompatible species.

Sometimes all that is required is constant pruning as corals start growing dangerously close.

I would recommend using a 100mL pouch of Purigen from SeaChem on a constant basis. It is basically a synthetic carbon but is regenerable. If not use either regular carbon or a skimmer --- better safe than sorry especially if you are pushing the limits of the tank.

[ckreef]

Here is a side view of my Minibow 7.

Lower right hand corner is the coral with the white slime spot. It actually still has flesh where the white is. When it got slimmed it lost it's color and then sucked in really hard in that area.

About 1 month latter it now comes out in that area and is slowly getting it's color back. I'm hopeing for the best cause this is a fairly rare coral. They can not be purchased through normal channels. They can only be gotten from somebody who has aquacultured LR in the Gulf of Mexico and the coral started to grow off their LR in their leased section of the ocean.

[jeepjon]

I've had good luck in the past with a different tank in growing acros with the same lighting setup I have in this tank (actually it was less light, but I've added some light to my tank). I have a prizm skimmer that I've gotten to be pretty well tuned (it removes a REALLY scummy solid with a VERY dark liquid, too...so it's like dry and wet skimming at once!) I have the 20 gallon high flow refugium (a sump with LR and macroalgae species), and about 20 pounds of LR in the refugium, too. I know acros grow in my tank, because I have some, or at least I did before my accident), and I had tremendous growth in only a month from my acros with this lighting...and I get my acros pretty cheap from a guy who grows/frags his all under VHO lighting, and his acros are beautiful! I just want some other corals that grow a little faster to add some color more quickly to the tank. I've just never really mixed hard and soft corals before, so I don't know what to expect, and I don't want to sacrifice the growth rates of my SPS and had corals for being able to put in some softies.