[Pomme]

Can you keep acros with soft corals?

hi i have got a soft coral tank with muchrooms, polyps, pulse coral, plate coral, trumpet coral etc......

is it alright to put a acro frag in here or would i have to take out all the soft corals?

i just heard somewhere i might have to because of chemical warfare?

thanx andrew

[zhenya]

Andrew,

It all depends,I think.Ideally you would want to keep them in a separate systems but it could be done. It will require you to run carbon in your system at all times becouse of that warfare.Some softies are known to produce chemicals that inhibit growth in stonies and even kill them.Mushrooms can overgrow rocks and Acroporas that are on them and kill them,I've seen it myself in my own tank.
I think if provided enough room between them and continuos running of carbon it could be done but planning ahead is the key,IMHO.
FWIW,some softies are more potent then others so carefull selection would be required as well. For instance, corals like trumpet is not aconsidered a softie becouse it has bicarbonate skeleton and would belong to a LPS,or large polyped stony coral category,plate as well. Most of this groop of corals can form long and very potent sweepers and kill your Acroporas that way so they should be placed far enough for this not to happen.
On a side note,do you have a good coral book like "Aquarium Corals" by Eric H. Borneman by chance? If not,I'd recomment getting one or something similar to make yourself familiar with what corals can and can not do in aquarium and, most of all, what you can do to have a beautiful and healthy aquarium.
On top of the page where all the links are there is a link to the book store,if you need to browse it that is

[Pomme]

juust bought the book the other day, wow, it is very informative, but havent manage to read that much as have had to do lots of work lately, thanx for the reply,

oh so it would be okay to try a frag in the tank as long as its away from everything else?

[kevinpo]

It also depends how large the system is and the types of soft corals. I have found the bright yellow Fiji leather to be a good coral with SPS while Flexibilis sinularia (see note on this coral in Eric's book "Aquarium Corals") and the common colt coral are not. Also not all LPS and SPS are affected the same some will withdraw about a week to 10 days after a water change while others seem normal.

HTH,
Kevin

[Pomme]

so basically it would be a bit of the luck of the draw, or not?