softys in a frag tank

[l337dave]

quick one:

what problems would I have keeping xenia and ricordia in frag tank together?

I know leathers or GSP with pretty much anything else is a bad idea is this true of mushrooms / ric too?

I'm guessing it's not as easy as just not mixing soft with hard, are there any major rules I should be following?


thanks,


dave.

 

[Herefishyfishy]

Xenia and ricordia will do fine together in a frag tank, assuming good filtration. I have seen it done by a couple propogators.

 

[l337dave]

ah good, happy about that

are most soft corals other than leathers and GSP ok together?


dave.

 

[steve-s]

Any Corallimorph should be kept seperated from even other Corallimorphs in a frag tank. The goal should be mono species. The most noxious soft corals would be Corallimorphs, Sinularia, Klyxum/Alcyonium, Sarcophyton and Pachyclavularia. Xeniids as a rule are usually the meekest soft corals although not completely without defenses. Your efforts in growing out the Xenia would be severely limited with Ricordia in the tank.

 

[Anthony Calfo]

well said Steve. Its true... if the goal for a given coral is maximum growth, then monospecific culture is the only way. Its a huge difference if you will see/take the time to run comparative tanks (trials) between mixed cultures and monospecifics)

I just posted this on another message board with a similar thread:
whole thread: http://forum.marinedepot.com/Topic53146-13-1.aspx

excerpt:I often sound rather strict/purist about the crowding or keeping of mixed coral tanks... but truthfully, I not only recognize that most folks have these tanks... but I also have enjoyed some of my own this way (and will set up tanks in the future as garden reef mixes).

The root of the issue is that any of the corals we keep if left alone could fill out aquariums in just a few years. If they were on the reef... they'd gobble up that tiny patch of space fast.

So in our aquariums... more than a few corals mixed together is indeed "too many"

But we are not going to change our heavy stocking styles any time soon.

My suggestion is that we can all enjoy these types of aquariums a bit more successfully if we compensate for the compromise (crowding).

You'll see that aquarists that change carbon frequently (weekly ideally in small portions... but at least monthly strictly) or use some other chemical media (ozone ideally)... those that do their water changes, know how to tune their skimmers and then actually keep them producing skimmate near daily have little to no problem with garden reef aquaria.

It is when we get lazy (as many folks do) and a number of the necessary husbandry reqs are ignored that we start to see mysterious deaths that are not so mysterious

With good husbandry, I'd still never recommend more than 1 species per 10 gallons. Even that is a rather poor rule over time (deaths will still occur that could have been avoided)