chemical warfair

[cateyes]

i've heard of it but don't really understand how it works/happens.

what corals does it happen between? is it like SPS's vs LPS's, or can SPS's chose to battle each other?

and do they have to be touching each other for it to take place?/

thanks a lot,, i figuring on a new coral placement plan...

 

[Sk8r]

Many large polyp stonies have 'sweeper' tentacles that appear at night, and drift downstream to their neighbors. Your placement has to take that into account.
Some lps are of similar enough type they 'get along.' Be sure before you try it.
Softies sweat at each other, and their 'smell' gets all through the tank. This is why they're best placed near the outflow of the water, not the inflow. This 'smell' can sting or damage other corals.
Leathers and zoos have chemical defenses by which they actually prevent other corals, either soft or stony, from growing. This means more room for the leather in question.
Here is a picture of a sweeper by daylight.

This is a pearl bubble overexcited by the prospect of food. They concentrate their nematocysts (stinging cells: like a jellyfish) into the tentacle which they extrude: they can actually move their cells around, they are such watery creatures.

 

[gflat65]

Softies (leathers) are probably the most potent in the chemical warfare issue. Thye secrete chemicals in the water around them that can be toxic to other corals. Flow direction can help prevent disasters. I have a few leathers in my main display and have never had problems, but you hear the horror stories all the time.

 

[crpeck]

If you want to see chemical warfare in action, just come visit my tank. I did everything wrong initially in choosing corals for my tank and now they're all big and struggling for territory.

When I had my big leather near my euphyllia (frogspawn), the leather kept sliming and the euphyllia would alternate between staying retracted, putting out sweepers, and expelling zoanthellae (sp?). Once I moved everyone to opposite sides of the tank and opposite return jets, they've done okay.

I think I still have pictures in my gallery of hydnophora spitting a white cottony goo all over my favorite ricordia. They disintigrated within hours of that attack.

Everywhere you look in my tank someone is stinging the snot out of someone else. I need a bigger tank.

In general, large polyp stonies don't like softies. Euphyllia are particularly offended. LPS only really do harm when they can reach, but those sweepers can reach quite far. Strong softies like sarcophyton and certain leathers only need to be upwind in the current to distress either LPS or SPS. Hydnophora are supposedly one of the strongest SPS, but right now I have brown star polyps kicking the Hydnophora's butt.

In Eric Borneman's Coral book, there is a chart that ranks corals by agressiveness. Does anyone know where that chart is online?

Good luck!

Cathy

 

[Sk8r]

[Aside: Cathy, I think we should start a thread of Corals Only: Aggressive. ]

I had an encrusting pink leather that would turn dark purple and absolutely everything in the tank, even upstream, would close up, slime, or spit. I fragged it back in '90, and sold it in '99, and for all I know, clones of that thing have taken over Oklahoma.

 

[crpeck]

Too funny! I can totally relate.

I can just look at the tank and see when its time to water change, change the carbon and stick in a polyfilter to do as much damage control as possible when someone has declared war.

The latest here is some green striped mushrooms that blew free and landed all around the base of the euphyllia. Three heads of euphyllia on the bottom blew big hunks of brown strings, retracted and now look bleached. I moved the offending mushrooms and the euphyllia heads are back open, but who knows how long it will take them to regain their color.

If I had it to do over, I would never mix the corals I have in the size tank that I do.

Thanks for the warning if I'm ever tempted by some encrusting pink leather. I've never heard of that? Do you know the scientific name of that one so I can look it up?

Cathy

 

[Sk8r]

We tried every book known and we never could find anything remotely like it. It was the color of Peptobismol, pimpled up into little pinhead hairlike extensions (magnifying glass time) grew sheets of itself out into the current {those looked like someone's discarded bubblegum], enwrapped rocks, and was otherwise one of the most successful and unattractive leathers I have ever met.

 

[crpeck]

Hmmm....

One step beyond aggressive corals, are the "scourge of the tank, grow like a weed and just as obnoxious corals". I've heard some say xenia, for me it is the cursed brown star polyps and for you the Pepto Bismol coral. Catchy name.

 

[Sk8r]

LOL!

 

[just dave]

IME gorgonians can be some of the worst offenders.

 

[Sk8r]

Really? Gorgonians? I'm surprised. I'd had ambitions for one, and that warns me, for sure!

 

[acro-wrasse]

I've lost green star polyps to a free swinging gorgonian. "killed'm dead" and the gorgonian was not bothered in the least.