Soft Coral Proximity

MixedFruitBasket · Sep 1, 2019

I asked this on another thread but it probably got buried. I noticed that with some people's tanks you have leathers very close together. Do you not have issues with chemical warfare? I've been trying to keep mine far apart but unless I absolutely have to it would make it easier on me for aquascape design to do them closer.

I'm running carbon and purigen, if that helps.

Auquanut · Sep 1, 2019

Following. Maybe we can get someone with experience to chime in. You're talking about different leathers right?

MixedFruitBasket · Sep 1, 2019

Auquanut said:
Following. Maybe we can get someone with experience to chime in. You're talking about different leathers right?

Yes, different leathers.

andrewkw · Sep 1, 2019

As someone who has many softies touching many different corals I would say you can take it on a case by case basis. Different corals touching are going to try and kill each other, they aren't always going to be successful. Before replying I took at look my tank :

The gorgonian isn't really a true soft coral in the sense that it has a skeleton. It has barely touched the leather for quite some time, but these days they are in almost constant contact and the tips of the gorg have died.

Although I even have leathers touching an acro, and while neither is happy with this arrangement it's not quickly killing anyone. It's not just toxins corals will try and overgrow other corals.

Keep in mind that I run my system pretty clean, and none of these corals were placed on top of each other. Over the course of years they grew into each other and adapted to the situation.