softie and sps

[crabbejoe]

I read somewhere that if you start a tank off with soft corals, that when you decide to start adding hard corals, the chemicals released by the softies will make it more difficult for the hard corals to get going. The article said it would be best to do an all hard coral tank, or an all softy tank. And in the wild you rarely see them mixed. There will be one whole section of a reef with all softies, or one whole section with all sps, but not mixed.

Anyone else heard this?

 

[H@rry]

I have recently setup a three tank system with a common sump. Two SPS tanks and a softie tank. I have been watching for problems but have seen none. I'm tagging along on this one.

 

[crabbejoe]

The more I'm reading about this, the more I'm seeing that's it's not a good idea to mix the two. You might have slow sps growth with them sharing water. Running carbon is supposed to help, but it still might not be enough.

 

[Old School Reefer]

My SPS never really took off until I removed all of my startup leather corals. Once they were gone everything weny nuts. Yellow Fiji leather coral is the only one left and it doesn't seem to release the same level of chems.

 

[crabbejoe]

Do you still have zoas or mushrooms? If I'm switching to sps should I get rid of those?

 

[Russellaqua]

When I sold corals as a business I kept softies separate from all others for that very reason. The skimmer on the softy system also produced a lot of skimmate. It's amazing the amount of chemical warfare they engage in.