question for sk8r and others

schoch79

New member
In one of the other threads sk8r said to not mix mushrooms or rics or yumas( I know they are types of mushrooms) with lps because it will end up with chemical warfare between them. I understand that the cheap and simple mushrooms, discsoma or something like that, will spread like crazy so I was only going to do the rics and yumas, more colorful and "fancy". But now that I hear this I am cautious of it. Will it really be a problem? I was mostly going for lps in my tank with a few softies including the above-mentioned shrooms.
 
Ricordea don't really spread as rapidly as your average mushroom. If chemical warfare is a concern, then run plenty of activated carbon. As long as you keep the population under control (more frags for everyone :D) and their location, I think you will be just fine.
 
We've had mushrooms and rics in the same tank as many LPS for over a year now without any problems. The mushrooms and rics are on one side of the tank, and most of the LPS on the other.
 
Most corals divulge in some type of warfare with other corals, it's simply survival of the fittest. Just try to anticipate any problems while placeing corals, anything that may release toxic compounds may be better located closer to the filtration, next to the overflow/canister intake, stuff like that. fwiw, I've got a wide mix of lps, shrooms, sps, and all sorts of various leathers in my 55g and chemical warfare has never really been a big issue. Just add corals slowly, give them plenty of space and the longer you have them in the same enviroment without messing with them or moving them, the less likely they'll be to activley attack one another.
 
Most corals engage in chemical warfare (if not all) of some form, and other corals (most noteably members of the lps grouping and especially galaxea and heliofungia) send out sweeper tentacles to sting and drive back other corals.

When keeping mushrooms and ricordea together, especially in close proximity to one another, there is a fear of over-growth. Like Xenia, common mushrooms seem to spread like wildfire, while other, more desireable or attractive corals take forever to grow and split it seems. There is the fear that more common and faster growing corals, such as Xenia, common mushrooms, or zoanthids will over crowd and slowly kill or driveback ricordeas. However, if you have a large enough take to offer ample growing space, and keep up with fragging to control the spread of faster corals, you shouldn't really have an issue.

That and use your tank to your advantage. Faster mushrooms can be placed lower, and further away from your rics, while LPS or SPS can go towards the upper levels of the tank to take advantage of higher light. There are also techniques of using current to encourage growth in a particular direction as well.
 
Re: question for sk8r and others

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10430426#post10430426 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by schoch79
In one of the other threads sk8r said to not mix mushrooms or rics or yumas( I know they are types of mushrooms) with lps because it will end up with chemical warfare between them.

Don't believe everything you read ;)
 
Overgrowth is your problem. Rics and yumas are hotter than discosomas as I understand...not too much of a problem until one of two things happens: the lps grows, or the ric multiplies and gets closer to the lps.
If I were doing such a tank, I'd a] yes, run carbon: just keeps the chemical wars at a minimum. b) make sure no lps sweeper tentacles can reach a mushroom [they go where water flow takes them] c) keep the mushrooms on their own rocks and try to create some sort of barrier, like a gap in the rockwork, that keeps 'islands' or 'mesas' of rics or yumas permanently isolated, to keep conflicts from happening.
LPS with short tentacles: frogspawn and hammer [compatible with each other: can touch and mingle]. Fox. Candy cane [caulestra.] Hot: torch coral, same family as frog and hammer, but not to be put touching anything. LPS with 6" sweepers: bubble, tooth, galaxea, maze brain. Sweepers come out at night, or during feeding.
For the rest, it's just going to take clever rockwork and some monitoring, but you're right, that the rics and yumas are slower in reproducing. They'll spit chemicals if annoyed [you'll see several mushrooms contract and stay mad for hours] but the carbon will get that out in fairly short order. Unfortunately carbon removes some good stuff, too, and I don't like to run it non stop---you can judge your own tank's behavior and see if you dare take it out.

The only other difficulty, and not a large one, for optimum growth, is that most of the lps are from the Pacific, and rics and yumas hail from the Caribbean, but the difference in chemistry ought to be fairly minor.

LPS like moderate light including mh, but need to be acclimated to really strong light, raising them a bit per week. I have an insanely growing hammer that's 18" below a 250 mh, 9" below the surface of the water.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10432178#post10432178 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Reefmack
Are ricordea florida & yuma compatible together?

Very much so.
 
Just so people understand the severity of sweeper tenticles, I had a very beautiful green bubble coral in my 55g, along with a whole slew of various euphyllia. My bubble had always been pretty well behaved until one night I noticed the long sweepers, the smallest of which was probably 6" long, and during this one night, he managed to simply "touch" and kill 3 frogspawn heads (1 on one colony, 2 on the other). A simple touch cause them to brown jelly very quickly and I actually lost one of these colonies completely, the other is in the process of making a comeback. I've also watch a very small Galaxia (encrusting) take out multiple zoo colonies as well as several mushrooms. He was very isolated in the open sandbed, but those sweepers just get BIG!
 
Yep, that's what sweeper tentacles do. Actually, I believe it was either Blue Planet or Earth that had a wonderful section on it showing time lapse footage of corals attacking one another at night.

Sweepers on many corals can be quite long, and longer than you expect for the size of the colony. For a small to medium (*no bigger than a baseball) sized colony of galaxea, it needs at least 4-6" of berth from other corals to have a chance of not harming other things. Foxs and elegance corals should be given the benefit of the doubt and given far larger berths for their tentacles.

However, getting back to the topic at hand, mushrooms are more noted for overgrowth and sliming when bothered, letting out a noxious mucus, as opposed to sweeper tentacles.

And, yes, florida and yumas can be kept together, but florida has a slightly faster growth rate than yuma and are a bit hardier. If you're aiming to keep yumas, I'd probably stick with those as your only rics. The floridas will just look bland and boring in comparison, saving you money for bigger, better specimens!
 
Thanks all for a great thread. My first corals are being shipped this monday and the timing couldnt be better. I have 3 different zoa's and a ric coming in, but in the near future am getting frogspawn, torch, plate and some star polyps. Obviously placement is a concern after readint this thread. I have a 75.
 
That plate will go on the sand: they can move themselves: watch they don't go toward the rics.

Star polyps: put them on a separate rock, out away from everything else: it will try to spread onto everything fairly fast, and can become a pest.

Get your frog a place where its tentacles get tossed, not beaten, same with the torch, but put the frog upwind of the torch, which will lengthen its tentacles amazingly to try to murder the frog, or anything else in reach. The gsp might make a good buffer between the torch and anything else: it's a softie, but does not sting: it defends itself by multiplying.
 
Thanks sk8r. You have helped immensly. Can the zoa's go near any of these stinging machines? Or can they be used as a DMZ?
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10432725#post10432725 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Sk8r
The gsp might make a good buffer between the torch and anything else: it's a softie, but does not sting: it defends itself by multiplying.

Excellent suggestion. I have used Xenia in the past as a buffer between euphyllia colonies, since they'll keep the xenia in check without being harmed by it. I tried my best to do the same with some GSP's but now I have little bits of GSP's where I don't want them....I don't consider them a pest since I love em, but man can they be a PITA when they get where you don't want em.

As for zoo's, I find any of my euphyllia and many other will kill them off quickly, as far as stinging stoney corals go, the zoo's have gotten close to some softies in my tank, sinularia and such, as well as some montipora digi's and managed to do severe harm before they could be moved. Zoo's can pack a punch as well. Once certain zoo colonies get large enough they can easily move into the "pest" category if not kept in check.
 
I appologize for my newbie question, but what is GSP. Just starting to get the coral names and lingo down. As a side note, it sounds as though its best to have 2 seperate sides of the tank, one for shrooms, ricordia, and zoa's, and another for the sweepers.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10432692#post10432692 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by sgallagher7
Thanks all for a great thread. My first corals are being shipped this monday and the timing couldnt be better. I have 3 different zoa's and a ric coming in, but in the near future am getting frogspawn, torch, plate and some star polyps. Obviously placement is a concern after readint this thread. I have a 75.

Definitely follow sk8rs advice when it comes to the plate. THEY DO MOVE!!! It's a little creepy when you think about it, but pretty cool in the long haul of adaptions! And, sadly, more often than not, they don't seem to move for a better spot or more light. No, they move to destroy corals getting into their space. Beautiful, but nasty little buggers if you have many delicate, lowly situated corals.

I'm a big softie fan, and you can do loads of neat things with star polyps by creative cultivation. Many people just let it grow into large carpets or rolling hills encrusted with the stuff, but there's so much cooler things you can go with a creative mind. Several reefers on RC have grown it up the back of their tank, making a living background. Other, more imaginative people have come with neater uses. Danny Bradley, formerly of Petland-Dunwoody, grew it atop a plastic skeleton's head to make hair in a joke- complete with X. umbellata sprouting from the ribcage and chest cavity!
 
GSP is green star polyps. You are probably referring to these when you say that you are getting star polyps. they tend to be very green in color with a purple base/mat.
 
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