soft, lps and sps

[toothman]

I have a established reef tank with normal water parameters. I have recently had some stn on several 6 inch corals grown from 1 inch frags.

I have struggled trying to find a solution and came up with a observation. Most are near a pineapple tree softy that has grown a lot. None are directly touching the softy but are in the path where water passes through the pineapple to acropora. One is also on the other side of the tank. (the pineapple tree coral is about 10 inches by 10 inches.)


We all know that soft corals do give off toxins, could this be the reason for stn to the acros ?

Along with this thought what have been the experiences with lps like acans, elegance, and lobos with acropora

 

[Steve Wright2]

Hi Toothman

it was for very similar reasons that I decided to remove my soft corals from my 5ft tank a couple of years or so ago

I was running carbon 24/7 , but felt that my SPS corals would benefit from the removal of species such as leathers, colts, toadstools etc

another benefit was that it allowed me to increase overall flow rates, at 60 x tank volume, the soft corals did not seem as happy as they had been previously in a 40 x tank volume of water flow per hour
removing said soft corals has allowed me to increase to over 80x volume in water movement

LPS corals , the increased water flow was not appreciated by the more fleshy LPS corals, and hammers, bubbles and torches , ended up moved to a smaller set up along with the soft corals ( running carbon still 24/7)

the LPS corals that have faired well in the 5ft set up with 80X + flow per hour are all at sand bed level, and include Acans, Wellso, and other less fleshy LPS corals that seem to be able to tolerate the conditions and cannot reach any of the SPS corals to sting them

Steve

 

[Dexters Reef]

I have all three in my tank, and just had to return a large clove colony that was attacking a nearby (4-5" away) sps. It certainly is difficult making a habitat for all 3...SPS like high flow, LPS like low-medium flow. When I add new LPS it can be challanging to find placement. But, it can be done. I have several sps in my tank along with kenya tree, a large toadstool leather, acans, zoanthids, frogspawn, torch coral, duncans, etc. I have a 75G tank with a 44x turnover rate, 30g sump with refugium, and chemipure elite.

You just have to be careful with placing sps near or directly downstream of a leather or large softies. SPS doesnt seem to mind duncans, zoanthids, or acan lords in my tank

 

[TucanSam007]

lobos and elegance have been fine for me with my sps dom. tank. I actually chose the elegance because I wanted some movement (and a host for my clowns) without getting a nem.

 

[toothman]

thanks all, I removed the soft coral and will see if they recover.

While removal of a large leather in another spot, I took it out and there was a big anaerobic base about 3 inches by 4 of stinky black flesh. I am sure this did not help either possibly the cause.