Leathers and SPS... how close is too close?

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I recently added green slimer, Monti and birds nest frags to my 33g tank.

They were mounted to small rocks and placed on the LR close to the top of the tank to draw as much light as possible. Had a few cases of a snail knocking them down. I'm now in the process of giving them a more stable mounting.

Since the addition my leathers have not looked as good. Having read the thread on the "Chem War" that happened in a holding tank durring a tank upgrade I'm a little concerned.

How close is too close for SPS frags? Will they "get to know each other" and things will get better?

Should I look for other problems? Oh, the sponges, Xena, Zoos, fish and other SPSs look fine.

Any thoughts at all are appreciated.

 

[oimate84]

My tank is mostly softies and i have the same situation...The couple of acros and montis I have grow extremely slow due to the abundance of leathers in my tank. Just try to space them out as far as possible from the leathers. And it helps to run carbon more often then usual. I just drop a bag of carbon in my sump and change it out every 2 weeks or so.

 

[grav]

Thanks for the response. Similar, but if your softies are looking good and SPSs so-so it is actually the reverse. Do your leathers far outnumber the SPSs?

Seems to me whenever I see pics of the big amazing reef tanks on this forum the corals are darn near touching.

We always see posts about how much fish a tank with a given filter system can support, what about the corals? Do our little friends get along better with there own kind? Should I segragate the tank and have leathers on one side and hards on the other?

Anyone have a rule of any kind? 2 inches apart? 3?

Thanks again!

 

[Leopardshark]

IMHO, anywhere in the tank is too close.
Softies and SPS´s SHOULD NOT be mixed in the same tank. Softies release terpenoids and that substance is know to slow the growth of sps´s. It is not good to mix them at all, specially with sarcos and mushrooms.
Marco

 

[Len]

While I understand sofites release toxins, I've always had good success mixing soft and hard corals in my tanks. The only filtration I use (on a regular basis that is) is a skimmer, and both softies and stonies grow well in my tanks, even if they're within a few inches of each other (or down-current). Your mileage may vary, but that's my experience.

 

[LauraH]

My experience reflects Len's. I have a mixed tank and I get good growth from SPS, LPS, and softies. I do find that the soft corals need to be kept in check though, but only because many of them will damage some SPS if allowed to come into actual physical contact with them. Mushrooms are a special nuisance in this regard.

I do plan on setting up another reef in order to separate the LPS and softies from the SPS, mainly so that I can provide the most favorable conditions depending on the types of corals (i.e. stronger currents for SPS). Also, I'm tired of peeling mushrooms away from my SPS.

 

[grav]

Thanks all!

I don't know if this made the diffrence, but I moved the recent SPS additions as far apart from each other as possible & placed the sofites in between them.

This seems to have done the trick, but don't know if this was the true cause or just a co-inky-dink.

Mind you, this tank is not too thick with with any one thing, or even in total. After a year of searching for the perfect chemistry between fish, buying fish for $30-$50 and returning them for $6... glad to know I'm not in the same boat with the coral.

Thanks again!

 

[Anonymous]

I keep both and they are about six inches apart and they are not in the down current of each other. I do run a bag of chemi-pure in my sump though.

However, your situation is strange. Normally the SPS corals suffer from the softie terpenoids. I am guessing that it is just a co-inky-dink. My Sarco does close up for a day or so every once and a while and it's back bigger and better than before.

Good Luck