leathers/shrooms w/SPS?

[tru conch]

i was reading a few posts about the dangers of having leathers/shrooms in an SPS tank. can anyone tell me why it is a bad idea?

 

[reefnut]

Chemical warfare... They say that leathers and such produce a chemical that harm sps corals.

 

[tru conch]

i figured it has something to do with the fact that leathers/shrooms producing their slime residue, harmful to the small polyps of sps.
lps corals do okay with softies though?

 

[finland]

I have had no problems with LPS and softies. They do well together in my tank. I have no experience with sps, but was also interested in the chemical warfare between sps and softies. Will there be a problem if they are in the tank together at all, or only if they are in close proximity to each other?

 

[chinnyr]

I have 2 Acros high up in my tank and have them away from the leathers.They have been fine,but I do not plan o adding anymore sps because of this.At the lfs they have a display tank with softies(leathers too),lps and sps.The sps have grown all over the back glass and there were some big ones in the tank.It looked to be at least a 240gal system.He gets his frags to sell from that tank.I saw Sinularia,Nepthea,Toadstool and what looked like finger leathers in there.I could not see what filtration he was running,but there was one big skimmer visable.I saw more resessed polyps on the leathers from a big Frogpawn than anything wrong with the sps.

 

[bigmac]

Your going to hear and read a lot about this. I've never been a softy guy but I did have a few (not by choice) in my sps tank along with shrooms and a few unwanted lps. I had lots of flow, heavy skimming and ran carbon once a month for a few days. Its just not a good idea to let any of these guys get too close. The LPS and shrooms are the worse, star polyps just as bad.
Lots of peope do it but its a pain.

 

[rick58]

Big Mac, when you refer to LPS being a problem for SPS are you talking about chemical warfare, stinging or both? You also refer to not letting them get too close... in your experience is there a relatively safe distance?

 

[tru conch]

thanks for all the replies. i am going to be setting up a large reef (125-180 gal) when i get home from my year long vacation in the middle east, and i want the new set up to be done right, which means lots of planning.
now i know about the leathers/sps warfare thing, i will plan on putting my softies in a seperate tank, and just having lps/sps in the large reef.
again thanks for all the input and clarifying that question for me.

 

[bigmac]

Originally posted by Rick58
Big Mac, when you refer to LPS being a problem for SPS are you talking about chemical warfare, stinging or both? You also refer to not letting them get too close... in your experience is there a relatively safe distance?
Stinging is probably the only thing to worry about with lps. They have (what's the word I'm looking for) sweepers tentacles (not the correct term) that you sometimes don't see until its too late. Bubbles are notorious for this.