soft coral chemical warfare

[Tiresias]

I read recently that some soft corals excrete toxins that may be harmful to neighboring corals, yet I see aquariums that are chock full of soft and stony corals with no apparent harm done. How does one prevent this behavior? Can soft corals and stony corals safely be kept in the confines of a 29 gallon aquarium without danger from toxins?

 

[Anonymous]

Yes- with due dilligence from the owner. Soft corals emit terpenoids which cannot be removed by skimming. They can only be removed from the water via use of carbon and/or water changes.

Carbon only has a useful period of about 72 hours, it is then chemically exhausted and is useless. If you are planning to keep softies and hard corals together I'd recommend that carbon be run for about 72 hours at least twice a month. In addition, biweekly or monthly water changes of 10-20%.

This also depends somewhat on what soft corals we are talking about. Our 10 gallon nano is SPS dominated, however we also have xenia, zoanthid polyps, ricordea and parazoanthus in the aquarium and none of them are particularly toxic, and I really don't need to be so active in maintaining this tank. Leather corals, i.e. sinularia, sarcophyton, nepthyea, etc are however rather toxic and would require more agressive water quality maintenance.

 

[Marty M]

Tom, is carbon the only effective media? Would Purigen or Chemipure be effective for continuous removal? Do these chemicals irritate fish?

 

[Anonymous]

I'm not aware of the product Purigen, however Boyd's Chemipure IMO is basically a glorified carbon media and would work just as well.