Coral Wars

[ckreef]

With haveing a heavily stocked Nano the war between the corals rage on. Here is a description of the three biggest battles currently going on in the tank.

1) Unknow (Stylophora pistillata) trying to be invaded by the Brown/Peach Zoo's (Zoanthus sp.). I say trying cause the Zoo's don't like the Stylophora. They keep trying to croud it out but they just can't handle touching the Stylophora so they really can't accomplish anything --- but they are trying.

2) Orange Capricornis (Montipora capricornis) starting to be taken over by an unknow white sponge from it's underside. This really sucks cause the sponge is slowly but surely winning. The very lowest, smallest, most remote piece of the Capricornis is approx 80% covered over by the sponge and the sponge just keeps growing. This Capricornis is a really nice coral that is just now really starting to take off in the tank. Not sure what I'm going to do in the long run --- would hate to loose the Capricornis over a stupid sponge.

3) Flesh Coral (Hydnophora rigida) sends out these super killer sweeper tentacle type things. When I first put him in the tank he sent them out in all directions for approx 1" which basically cleared the space around him except for the Brown/Peach Zoo's (Zoanthus sp). The Zoo's just hang tough.

The latest sweeper tentacle was sent out sometime today in the direction of the front of the tank. It is currently touching about 50% of a small patch of Ten-Ray Star Coral (Madracis decactis) and that section is almost totally dead. I really wish I had a camera cause this would make a great pic. One coral actively killing off another coral. Fortunatly I have a few more patchs of the Ten-ray Star Coral including a really big patch that is to far away to be affected.

Thats a summary of the major battles going on and we won't even get into all the little battles. I guess this is just everyday life on my reef where we actively practice some of Darwins theories. And think I still have a few more spots saved for the next few really nice corals I can get my hands on.

[icebear]

Originally posted by ckreef
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2) Orange Capricornis (Montipora capricornis) starting to be taken over by an unknow white sponge from it's underside. This really sucks cause the sponge is slowly but surely winning. The very lowest, smallest, most remote piece of the Capricornis is approx 80% covered over by the sponge and the sponge just keeps growing. This Capricornis is a really nice coral that is just now really starting to take off in the tank. Not sure what I'm going to do in the long run --- would hate to loose the Capricornis over a stupid sponge..

yeah it would.... hey i was thinking, if the capricornis is on a rock that can be moved without disturbing anyone, and it wouldn't hurt the capricornis, you could just expose the rock (and bully sponge) to the air which might damage the sponge enough that it will either croak or have to put all its effort into repair rather than conquest.

[ckreef]

That is a nice thought --- I sort of tried it and it didn't hurt the sponge any. Only those really big sponges get effected by air the little encrusting kinds can tolorate a lot of abuse.

The Capricornis is attached to the one piece of LR in the tank. I remove that LR (with all my corals attached) about every 6 weeks and give it a really good cleaning (scrubbing) out of water. I did this process just last Saturday and the LR/corals/sponge was out of water for at least 15 min. Sponge just kept kicking butt.

Maybe next time I have the LR/corals/sponge out of the water I will try and give the sponge part a fresh water rinse and see what happens to it. If I'm carefull I should be able to limit the area of the Capricornis that gets any contact w/ the frsh water. Hmmmmm