Introduction to mixed reef tanks

[hwttdz1]

I was planning on a possible mixed reef tank, however I recently came across in a book a statement reading more or less that hard and soft corals are very difficult to keep in the same tank. Is there some sort of tutorial post on keeping a mixed hard/soft tank. Or maybe a good book someone can recommend about corals especially keeping a mixed reef (I have no coral books yet, mostly books about setup and general selection of livestock, I've just picked up my first about specific fish, and corals will come even later down the road).

 

[hwttdz1]

I hate to bump a thread, but I have to ask again if anyone has any suggestions?
Or if anyone has a mixed tank and would like to share some experiences, and basic considerations. Thanks.

 

[marka1620]

That is a good question. Hard corals would obviously need higher lighting than softies. That could be solved by placement in the tank. I know there should be distance between the corals as they would try and use chemical/biological weapons on one another. With proper lighting placement and space. I wouldnt think it would be hard at all.

 

[petjunkie]

It depends, the problem is soft corals such as leathers and mushroom excrete toxins into the water that certain hard corals like SPS don't like, I keep softies and LPS in the same tank and just run carbon in a filter, that seems to work just fine and my tanks are all nanos.

 

[hwttdz1]

Petjunkie, are you also running a skimmer? I have heard of these toxins and th source mentioned two ways of dealing with them are skimmers and carbon.
Also I was grouping LPS in with soft corals, which in retrospect makes no sense. Now I'm wondering there should be no problems keeping lps, and sps in the same tank correct. Are lps and sps functionally the same for these considerations (lighting excepted)?

 

[petjunkie]

SPS seem to have much worse reactions to large amount of soft corals than lps, I don't run skimmers on my tanks and only passively run carbon but I do weekly water changes.