Zoa's and SPS - ok?

[crichard6069]

Good morning all,

My first SPS-to-be tank is at the end of the cycle (5 weeks on Saturday). This week I'm going to pick up some red-legged hermits and nerite snails for a clean-up crew. Since I'm paying the shipping cost, I was going to throw a coral or two into the mix. I was thinking about getting some zoa's since they're fairly hardy and simple (I've kept them before). I just wanted to make sure these are ok with SPS? Ultimately my goal is SPS (thus the bare bottom and 56x flow) but I wanted to check on these. Haven't found anything that says no... I know leathers are questionable with sps, but how about zoa's??

 

[landlord]

I have one 40 polyp zoa colony in my SPS tank. It seems to be fine as do the other corals. The zoas are approximately 4 inches from the nearest coral, an ORA green birdsnest. I do not see a problem with it.

Now with that said, I am sure I WILL have issues when the zoas spread to within touching distace of the SPS. There is bound to be some warfare. It is the nature of things.

FWIW --landlord

 

[crichard6069]

I kind of figured I'd end up with a warfare eventually.. right now everything in the tank is so new it's going to be quite some time before I get to that point...

Thanks for the fast response.

 

[landlord]

One thing to keep in mind however is accidental falls. It is no fun to have a hermit crab or snail accidentally topple over your favorite SPS into a ric or zoa colony so be mindful during placement.

 

[KevinFJB]

I've have zoas and SPS together for four years - some of the zoas growing arond the base of acros and montis without any problems or harm to either coral.

 

[lvreefer]

They won’t necessarily go to war. The zoas however can shade polyps and slowly advance over exposed skeleton. On the other hand, most don’t worry about it because SPS grow a lot faster than zoas spread. Just allow ample space when mounting your SPS frags to allow them to grow enough to shade their base.

 

[EnderG60]

they do fine together in my tank. Just have to break out the tweezers and prune back the zoa's month or so.

 

[TomRep]

Not the greatest picture, but they were on the same rock and touching each other. No problems at all. Unfortunatly this is when I was first getting into SPS and I lost the Monti colony.

 

[whalloper]

I have lots of both and dont have a problem. I think if they touch each other and theres no harm, youre lucky, but thats avoidable with placement.

 

[crichard6069]

Excellent.. my orange zoa's will be here tomorrow.

 

[B.C.theReefer]

It is a little more difficult to mix softies and SPS for placement reasons. But with some knowledge and common sense, I , and alot of other people keep mixed reefs. Of course, I've woke up to find one of my acros knocked over onto a shroom or colony of zoas. (bad hermit crab) But I do daily inspections of all my corals, so if one does fall, I usually put it back before too much damage is done. Now everything is fairly well secured and incrusted so that doesn't happen much anymore. Good luck!