Soft coral warfare?

[crrichey]

After having my 29 gallon crash I'm thinking of just sticking with soft corals. I really like leathers but in such a small tank would I have problems with the toxins they release affecting each other?

[iCam]

Maybe,maybe not. Run carbon to be on the safe side.

[tinyreef]

depends on the softie in question.

i usually don't get any/much grief from sarcos, lobos, caps, and nephts but sinularia and colts tend to coral fart, alot. even heavy carbon, Poly-Filters, and such can't keep up with them sometimes. i end up having to stick them in bigger setups to dilute their allelopathic issues. altho some sarcos can be very fartsy (e.g. spongiosum), while most others ime are innocuous.

room and placement will also give you "space". if the coral interprets a 'space shortage' (i.e. crowding) it'll react more often or severely. i've noticed a higher degree of mucus and coral farts if the coral feels (i believe) either another coral is encroaching, physically or chemically. i've actually seen chemicals exuding from the coral, it distorts the water like fw mixing with sw and trails off with the flow.

[huig]

i have a large sinularia (50 cm) along with some clones in a 200 gal tank and after a while my capnella started to 'vanish'. i took out the capnella and put it in a tank in my office, here it trived. now the capnella colonies are 1 30 cm and a few 20 cm. i've already tried to add small sinularia's but they simply won' t open, only after a large (50%) waterchange they show polyp extension for a few days.

[parothead22]

With regards to soft corals and Octocorals in the same tank. Their shouldn't be too much of a problem with different soft corals and their defense chemical warfare. The problem comes if you have stonies in with them.
Lobophyton, Sinularia and Lemnalia are among the most highly toxic soft corals. As mentioned in earlier posts, the use of carbon and weekly partial water changes will help in the reduction of the chemicals they emit.