softies vs. hard corals

That makes me wonder now that you mention it. My hard corals do not grow near as fast as some others in the clubs tanks do. My lighting is adequate and my calcium/phyto is as well. Maybe there is something to this?

I agree in my limited experience. Question: When you say 'hard' and 'soft', do you mean hard = sps, soft = most others? Which group are LPS in, especially the torch/frog/hammer family? Granted with those sweeper tentacles they might be in their own 'best by themselves' group.
    -Tim

There is a book called The Captive Reef by Dana Riddle. It's not listed in the Library here on the site but has been in the WMAS Library for some time.

Dana signed a copy for me when he came to speak to the WMAS. I donated it to the club because it is really good about all the different coral, and where they come from with a good description of the different reef zones.

Dana was the first hobbyist book author I know of to look into PAR (photo active response?) and how each coral responds to the different wavelengths.

Since SPS(small polyp stony coral includes all the ...pora's, etc.), LPS(large polyp stony coral includes frogspawn, bubble, elegance, blastimosa, etc.), and soft coral(leather, xenia, mushrooms, woods polps, cladiella, etc.) all come from different areas of the reef, it should not be surprising that they do not seem to fully flourish when placed together in our closed systems.

Finding ways to help all the types of coral (& clams!) do as well as possible together, using skimming, carbon, ample feeding and a combination of lighting schemes seems to be a worthy endeavor.

SallyJo Headlee of GARF seems to do it well.



Edited by Mark Peterson

I am attempting to grow both types of corals in my tank. So far my monti's have done great with the soft corals. if nothing else Marcus this will give you another tank to compare things to.