Toadstool Toxin

[Bigbluebh]

Over the last couple of years I have noticed that certain species of corals do not fare well in my 125gallon tank. I always suspected that either my large carpet anemone or toadstool leathers (14" & 8" Diameter) was the culprit. I recently bought an elegance coral that was doing great for about a month and then suddenly started to look a little strange. Don't worry, the elegance is now safe and recovering nicely in my hospital tank. I finally decided to find out what was going on in the tank. Too many corals in the frag tank now!! After some research I finally came across the following article/statement:

"The Sarcophyton sp. tend to produce a lot of toxic compounds compared to other leathers. The Common toadstool leather is one of the better understood leathers. According to the Department of Chemistry and Bioscience, and several other notable Bioscience institutions around the world, there are properties in the cells of this coral found to slow leukemia. With the production of toxins however, care must be taken when handling. They are also toxic toward other corals due to their release of terpenes (poisons used to ward off encroaching corals). They have been known to harm some stony coral species of Acropora like the Staghorn Acropora A. formosa, some species of Porites like P andrewsii, as well as the death of Catalaphyllia, Euphyllia, and Plerogyra species" (http://animal-world.com/encyclo/reef/le ... dstool.php).

I have never been able to keep any of the corals, listed above, in this tank. They will all do good for about a month and then suddenly show signs of stress.

My question: what can I do to house some of the corals, listed above, in my tank? I run carbon but that does not seem to help this situation.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.....

 

[lgtentacle]

Once these types of soft corals get large enough, about the only thing that I found to knock down the toxins is to perform frequent water changes. The soft corals that seemed to cause the most damage to other corals are the types that shed frequently (coverings of a mucus-like material that they emit during growth and stress conditions). I found that keeping these types of corals near overflows helps a lot to remove the physical shedding material from getting on the other corals and heavy skimming pulls out a lot as well. I've had issues with acro's in tanks with large soft corals, but I've never had them cause a problem with any euphyllia or catalaphyllia species corals while the soft corals were healthy. Keeping large soft corals away from each other helps as well (don't place a leather coral next to a sinularia or the toxin wars seem to heat up alot).

 

[nanshaw2001]

Thanks for the suggestion of keeping them near the overflow....will be moving mine today!

 

[Bigbluebh]

lgtentacle,

That makes a lot of sense now. The last time that I had problems with my torch and elegance was the same time that the smaller toadstool got to close to some green star polyps and got a good portion of it's head stung. Another problem I have is that both of my toadstools are right next to some large pieces of sinularia.

Can you explain "heavy skimming?" Is that turning up the skimmer to pull a wetter skimmate? Or, should I be looking to purchase a larger skimmer? I currently run an MPS 150 from Pro Clear Aquatics. It does really good but it's capacity is right at or maybe even a little below our system volume.

Thanks for the suggestions!!

 

[lgtentacle]

My "heavy skimming" comment refers to running the skimmer a bit wetter or just making sure that your skimmer is adequate for the size of your tank. Alot of people that have soft coral tanks tend to under skim a bit since a large number of soft corals actually like water that is a bit dirtier (more organics in the water column). For mixed tanks, its a bit more of a challenge because under skimming can cause problems with the sps corals since they prefer the water to be cleaner while overskimming deprives the soft corals of what it prefers. In mixed tanks, you need to find a happy medium based on the animals in the tank.

 

[Bigbluebh]

Thanks for the info!!

I cranked the skimmer up. I can already tell a difference in my torch coral. Some of the tentacles have been drawn in for a few weeks now. It was back to normal about 12 hours after I adjusted the skimmer. That's a promising sign!

Learn something every day!

Thanks Again!

 

[ChucksReefs]

This explains why my constantly dividing (walking) toadstool seems to have a place to plant it's foot next. Thanks.......