Soft Coral - New to salt new to the forum

garick

garick

Member
Hi there, I am new here and hope someone can help me.
I currently run a 150g system (shallow about 10 inches deep) 380 watt lighting with a combo of Fiji and Dominican live rock. Originally it was a fish and rock system only, however recently I decided to get this odd type of leather coral that looks like the cap of a mushroom. Its type is SARCOPHYTON SP. and I want to know if its color should be brown and if it should be standing up like some I have seen or laying on the big stone it came on, I have noticed it moving its foot sometimes and raising up where it touches the sand, is that normal as well?
p.s It appears some sort of little anemone has moved off the stone where the leather is and has embedded itself on the floor of the tank.
any info would be of great help thank you!
 
E

eric b 125

Guest
welcome to swf!!! we'd be more than happy to help you, but some pictures would help us identify what you're having problems with. where are you from, if you dont mind me asking...
 
garick

garick

Member
I will get pics shortly. On an update however, I took the coral out and used some tank water to flush the spot that appears to be falling apart. When I rinsed it, the flesh underneath was yellow and seemed just fine. As well it appears to be shedding some sort of skin of its lower half and today was partly standing up. I am in the USA in Eastern TN.
 
garick

garick

Member
Here is a picture of the coral I mentioned above. The place I ordered it from said that they goofed and sent me a Yellow Jakarta instead of a normal leather. They said I could trade it and return it if I wanted. But that I got the jakarta at the price of a normal brown leather.
 
flower

flower

Well-Known Member
Originally Posted by Garick
http:///forum/post/3183629
Hi there, I am new here and hope someone can help me.
I currently run a 150g system (shallow about 10 inches deep) 380 watt lighting with a combo of Fiji and Dominican live rock. Originally it was a fish and rock system only, however recently I decided to get this odd type of leather coral that looks like the cap of a mushroom. Its type is SARCOPHYTON SP. and I want to know if its color should be brown and if it should be standing up like some I have seen or laying on the big stone it came on, I have noticed it moving its foot sometimes and raising up where it touches the sand, is that normal as well?
p.s It appears some sort of little anemone has moved off the stone where the leather is and has embedded itself on the floor of the tank.
any info would be of great help thank you!

I don't see an anemone in the picture...
 
garick

garick

Member
The anemone has disappeared before I got the picture. Before it had its foot stuck to the glass bottom of the tank and then went under the sand when I was cleaning off the leather. The anemone itself looked alot like a button polyp but with 4 or 5 little spiked tentacles stood up sort of in a V ish shape above the many tentacles which lay flat around it to give it that polyp look.
I should explain what my tank is. I bought a commercial MARS system from a local walmart who was getting out of the fish business. It has 7 tanks, 6 at 11 gallons each and 1 33 gallon. Each tank is a Cube and uses an overflow system with a huge biowheel and a 50 gal sump in the bottom as well as a UV sterilizer and chiller.
It seemed like a very good deal and a fun project that would allow me the chance to have MANY things and keep them separated. I took one of the smaller tanks and have set it up to raise and frag beginner corals.
This is a picture of what they look like but mine looks like the one on the right, however are not a picture of mine as my bottom tank is one big tank.
Ok I found a better picture, my tank looks exactly like this minus the content in the tanks themselves.
 
flower

flower

Well-Known Member

So your tank looks like a fish store? I don't think critters are meant to be in such a tight space for the long haul. IMO You need to remove the separators and utilize the full tank. How they interact is part of the beauty of the reef.
Shallow is good because the tank gets good gas exchange, but it can be a problem with fish jumping.
Fish stores want it shallow so they can catch the critters easy to sell them.
 
garick

garick

Member
I have a 55 and a 29 I am going to be setting up right next to it. So shortly I will be moving most of my salt stuff into that 55 and 29. HOWEVER the lighting on both of those systems is sub par to the commercial system I have that carries around 300 watts over each set of systems and unfortunately my money is extremely limited. My main plan was to use these tanks as a project to see which types of fish I do best with while keeping them from eating each other and later on use those systems to frag and raise corals so I could keep them all seperated.
They look smaller than they are however. Each tank is easily 13+ inches left to right and over 12 front to back the only shortness is bottom to top. Plus I have really good air stones in each tank giving them massive amounts of air. Added to that the pump creates a slow but steady water-flow inside the tank. I also added another external hang on filter to each and every tank in the system creating even more water flow.
also each tank has a fairly high wall of another 8+ inches on both sides and the back is sealed. All but the front to keep jumpers down to a minimum. So far in the past 4 months I have had no issues with anything jumping out.
I even have a young snowflake in one of the side tanks and he has never tried to escape, though he's quite excited when I visit him and bring him some mysis shrimp.
 
flower

flower

Well-Known Member
Originally Posted by Garick
http:///forum/post/3185346
I have a 55 and a 29 I am going to be setting up right next to it. So shortly I will be moving most of my salt stuff into that 55 and 29. HOWEVER the lighting on both of those systems is sub par to the commercial system I have that carries around 300 watts over each set of systems and unfortunately my money is extremely limited. My main plan was to use these tanks as a project to see which types of fish I do best with while keeping them from eating each other and later on use those systems to frag and raise corals so I could keep them all seperated.
They look smaller than they are however. Each tank is easily 13+ inches left to right and over 12 front to back the only shortness is bottom to top. Plus I have really good air stones in each tank giving them massive amounts of air. Added to that the pump creates a slow but steady water-flow inside the tank. I also added another external hang on filter to each and every tank in the system creating even more water flow.
also each tank has a fairly high wall of another 8+ inches on both sides and the back is sealed. All but the front to keep jumpers down to a minimum. So far in the past 4 months I have had no issues with anything jumping out.

Cool project.
 
garick

garick

Member
I thought that it might also work well for a secondary project.
I buy base rock relatively often, so I thought it might be nice to store that in the large bottom tank and see how long it takes for that base rock to become full blown live rock with the coral algae growing on it.
Also, what are your opinions on growing the same type of coral on different types of live rock? My system has 3 levels so I have Dominican live rock on the top (looks shelf like, almost to the point of being a giant clam mouth somtimes) and in the middle I have Fiji. If I get most of my stuff moved into the bigger tanks. I had considered trying to aqua scape frags on to really cool looking different types of live rock to give it an even more decorative appearance.
Will moving a coral that has grown on fiji bother it if I put some on Dominican? I made some shelves from egg crate but I fear some of the softer leather corals might be damaged by the rigidness of it if they try to lay on it.
 
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