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Octo-friendly Corals

Keith

Vampyroteuthis
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Jun 5, 2008
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I'm pretty sure I asked about this once before, but I couldn't find the thread. I'm almost ready to start cycling my tank, and i'd like to put some corals in it. I doubt I could get it to look as good, but pretty much, after seeing videos of AnimalMothers tank, I want to do something like that. He did a nice job on that. I just wanted to know what will be ok with an octo. Personally I like most polyps, xenia, and taro trees, but what would you guys recommend? And are those ones I mentioned compatible? Any info would be much appreciated. Thank you for your time.
 
Pretty much any leather, Kenya, this type of "sun polyp" (they curl up when touched,eat octo poop and OhToo as well as Octane have never reacted to them, I have removed all others because they cause an immediate octo reaction), Caribbean mushrooms (don't know about others), most short tentacled gorgonians (corkey fingers may be problematic - there is on in OhToo's tank and he shys away from it).

You can also have brittle stars and most serpent stars (we removed our green since he seemed to be intimidating OhToo and many of the green ones get very large and agressive). For some mobile color, we love the thorny sea stars and have them in all three octo tanks. They are brightly colored meat eating scavengers (great for clean-up) and not at all shy of the light (unilke most serpents and brittles - they are not advised in a reef tank though as they tend to munch a little on some corals but we have had no trouble with them touching any of the softies mentioned for the octo tank). Pencil urchins are OK for the octo but tend to start munching on the softies once there is not enough algae (they will also remove coraline algae and I have so much of it in one tank I may take one from my sump and let it reduce the purple :hmm:)
 
Anthelia
sinularia
leathers of sorts
mushrooms
xenia
macro algae's of sorts

Avoid palythoa's, sps, lps. I would try not to mix in anything that's high-maintenance. Anything that isn't attached to a large rock will probably be moved.
 
Pulsing Xenia are fun because the octopus will sometimes sit next to them, and mimic the behaviour.
The above advice is quite sound !
 
That's awesome. You guys are always really helpful on this kinda thing. All of those options sound good to me. When I said polyps I was referring to the really common ones like green button polyps etc. If those aren't cool for the tank, it's no issue, I really like xenia.
 
Ah. I'm not very fimiliar with corals, so I looked up some of the ones that AnimalMother listed. I think the polyps i'm talkin about are palythoas.
 
If your water is good enough for an octopus to live in, those corals will be fine. You don't really need to dose anything for softies as long as you do your water changes, and you don't really need to feed them either. Just provide decent lighting for a few hours a day.
 
Reef central has been a big help, and huge source of info on coral care for me. Stay in the newbie section though, some of the people there are a lot better with tanks than they are people.
 
I had never found anything on foods for corals, I was hella confused, so that helps. Do corals require skimmers? And I know what you mean Hamp, there are definately some cocky people on RC.
 
Keith;128974 said:
I had never found anything on foods for corals, I was hella confused, so that helps. Do corals require skimmers? And I know what you mean Hamp, there are definately some cocky people on RC.

Most of the corals we keep only really require good lighting. Feeding them will help them grow faster, but it's not absolutely necessary unless they are non-photosynthetic.
Whether or not a skimmer is required really depends on what other filtration you have going, but you can't really beat a good skimmer. Most softies could be kept without a skimmer, as they actually tend to do well in less than perfect conditions, and you have to consider that a skimmer pulls out more than just the bad stuff in the water. Some people actually poor a little of the skimmed goo back into their tank.
 
Keith;128974 said:
I had never found anything on foods for corals, I was hella confused, so that helps. Do corals require skimmers? And I know what you mean Hamp, there are definately some cocky people on RC.

You are going to need the skimmer for the octopus anyway...
 
Because I want a few corals that aren't ok to keep with the octo, i'm thinking about getting a 29 gallon and making it a sort of aqua-garden. I can grow all the stuff I want for the octopus tank, in the coral tank while the other is cycling. I've been wanting to get into coral propogation for a while, I just haven't had a lot of spare time. The filter that I have is an Emperor 400. I had it on a freshwater tank I had a while back. I was under the impression that those types of filters were for freshwater only, but a friend of mine told me it was ok. He said that as long as the filter is for a tank thats larger than the one i'm gonna use it on, it should be fine. I trust him, he did all the aquatics stuff at Marine World for a few years. I just wanted to see if I would need a small skimmer or whatnot.
 
IMHO, The filters you are talking about are not that great, unless you change out the filter every 4 or 5 days. The lighting is all you need for most corals, and I would def. get a skimmer, and do weekly water changes. Dont overfeed your tank with fish/coral food. I like the Garf website, some controversial methods, but really helped me get started. Lots of info on farming corals as well. Good people there too. Also make sure you have the time, because it takes a lot of it to start a reef tank.
 

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