Coral Compatibility

[Sammydog]

Question for the coral experts out there.

I've in the last few months (well the bulk of this year) been having a bit of issue with my Frogspawn and Hammer slowly receding, and my torch dying. These have been happy in my tank for close to 2 years previously.

Through the whole episode my parameters have been spot on and everything else in the tank has been thriving. I've done a heap of research lately and the best explanation I can come up with is the corallimorph population is having adverse effects on the frogspawn and hammer. From what I have been able to read on the issue corallimorphs are fine with zoanthids, but can present big issues with stony corals (both LPS and SPS).

I'm guessing my corals were all happy together while the morph population was low, but as they have multiplied, stony corals are becoming stressed. I moved the hammer away from the morphs and it seems happy enough for now.

I've attached a pic of my tank (this is with the lights having been on only a few minutes so the corallimorphs really haven't swollen up to their full size. When I started the tank 3 years ago I had around 5 morphs, now the number would be closer to 40 and I give them away as they come off the rocks.

So I guess my question is has anyone else experienced this? I'm thinking of giving away the frogspawn and hammer while there are healthy sections and just having a corallimorph tank with a few different varieties of morph.

 

[Salty B]

Are you running carbon? Softies tend to wage chemical warfare on opponents.

 

[Sammydog]

I run carbon and change it every second week.

 

[irensing]

I'd ditch at least 60% of the shrooms to make way for new corals. Sell them for $5 a head or trade them at the LFS for some zoos or at least different color shrooms. If you want easy low maintainence then just stick with the shrooms. Good luck!

 

[Sammydog]

I'd already decided to stick with the morphs, maintenance ease aside, I really like them. Personally, they are my favorite coral in my tank.

As it turns out, my kids got me a piece of live rock for Fathers Day today with two blue morphs, two purple/green morphs and two green/orange morphs with cool bumps on it. They look great in the section of the tank that has no morphs, so hopefully they cascade down the rocks like the red ones and I won't be needing any more coral for my tank.

I've asked a few LFS if they would take some of my morphs in exchange for credit, but no one is ever interested as the shops get them so cheap. Well, today I went to a LFS I haven't been to in a while and he will take them off me in exchange for store credit. $5 though, nope, try $2 each polyp. They sell for anything between $15 per polyp to $50.

 

[Smitty]

Yeah, that's bogus...he should do what my lfs does...what every it sells for, you split the profit 50/50. That sound fair and you should ask him about it.