Best Water conditions or soft corals?

keh9qd · 10/04/2011, 12:03 AM

I have a soft coral system that is roughly 175 gallons water volume and it is full of softies. Most of my soft corals are doing great and out every day (devils hand leather, cabbage leather, fiji leathers, green polyped toadstool, etc...) while on the other end of the tank my 12" wide toadstool and 7" wide toadstool are not wanting to come out at all (for nearly 2 weeks now). My water is not super clean, but it is not dirty as I have heard that softies tend to do better in less than pristine water. My current setup includes:

- 4 bulb T5 fixtures (8 foot long tank)
- medium flow with a couple koralia powerheads
- SG- 1.025 (consistent)
- PH- 7.9 (consistent)
- KH- 8 (consistent)
- Cal 420
- Temp 77
- Nitrates 20 ish
- Skimmer: ASM G3 24 hrs
- 55g sump with refugium
- heavy feeding 1 time per day

My question is what are optimal conditions for the average softy? I realize all may be different, but what might be the cause of leathers not being to happy on one side of my tank only?

musicman980 · 10/04/2011, 06:32 AM

Your tank parameters are all fine for softies, but maybe you could raise the PH a little? I doubt your water parameters are causing the problems though because your other softies are fine and they all share the same tank water. Perhaps your toadstools are getting a different amount of light than the others? Too much or too little

APBonds · 10/04/2011, 06:33 AM

Softies like light but can get by with lower levels. They do like a lot of water flow, I have a Toadstool that didn't want to act right until I placed it in high flow. It then stood up and put out its poylops. Your ph and kh are low your ph should be about 8.3 and your kh should be 9-12. I would drop your nitrates with carbon or chemi pure. I use chemi pure, gfo, macro algea, and a skimmer in my sump. My nitrates get up to 0.05 before a water change but its not haveing nitrates in the water that feeds them its more the waste from fish that they like.
So try pointing then power heads more in their direction or add more power heads, raise ph and kh and drop your nitrates. As far as the leathers on one side not being happy I would have to say flow. But some leathers are going to be more sensative to the ph and kh than others.

sneeyatch · 10/04/2011, 09:35 AM

Lots of leathers in a tank can usually benefit from carbon use. Wouldn't surprise me if allelopathy is the issue.

keh9qd · 10/04/2011, 06:40 PM

Cool, i have 2 unused reactores and will give that a shot.

10/04/2011, 12:03 AM	#1
keh9qd Registered Member Join Date: Sep 2010 Posts: 301	Best Water conditions or soft corals? I have a soft coral system that is roughly 175 gallons water volume and it is full of softies. Most of my soft corals are doing great and out every day (devils hand leather, cabbage leather, fiji leathers, green polyped toadstool, etc...) while on the other end of the tank my 12" wide toadstool and 7" wide toadstool are not wanting to come out at all (for nearly 2 weeks now). My water is not super clean, but it is not dirty as I have heard that softies tend to do better in less than pristine water. My current setup includes: - 4 bulb T5 fixtures (8 foot long tank) - medium flow with a couple koralia powerheads - SG- 1.025 (consistent) - PH- 7.9 (consistent) - KH- 8 (consistent) - Cal 420 - Temp 77 - Nitrates 20 ish - Skimmer: ASM G3 24 hrs - 55g sump with refugium - heavy feeding 1 time per day My question is what are optimal conditions for the average softy? I realize all may be different, but what might be the cause of leathers not being to happy on one side of my tank only?

10/04/2011, 09:35 AM	#4
sneeyatch Registered Member Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Virginia Beach, VA Posts: 1,312	Lots of leathers in a tank can usually benefit from carbon use. Wouldn't surprise me if allelopathy is the issue. __________________ - Todd It's often the saddest of us working our hardest to make everyone laugh Current Tank Info: Tankless

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10/04/2011, 06:32 AM	#2
musicman980 Registered Member Join Date: Sep 2010 Posts: 130	Your tank parameters are all fine for softies, but maybe you could raise the PH a little? I doubt your water parameters are causing the problems though because your other softies are fine and they all share the same tank water. Perhaps your toadstools are getting a different amount of light than the others? Too much or too little

10/04/2011, 06:33 AM	#3
APBonds Registered Member Join Date: Apr 2011 Posts: 150	Softies like light but can get by with lower levels. They do like a lot of water flow, I have a Toadstool that didn't want to act right until I placed it in high flow. It then stood up and put out its poylops. Your ph and kh are low your ph should be about 8.3 and your kh should be 9-12. I would drop your nitrates with carbon or chemi pure. I use chemi pure, gfo, macro algea, and a skimmer in my sump. My nitrates get up to 0.05 before a water change but its not haveing nitrates in the water that feeds them its more the waste from fish that they like. So try pointing then power heads more in their direction or add more power heads, raise ph and kh and drop your nitrates. As far as the leathers on one side not being happy I would have to say flow. But some leathers are going to be more sensative to the ph and kh than others.

10/04/2011, 06:40 PM	#5
keh9qd Registered Member Join Date: Sep 2010 Posts: 301	Cool, i have 2 unused reactores and will give that a shot.