Leathers, zoas and sps, oh my... (who does it?)
 

Just wondering who keeps any two or all three of these in a reef?
I do, I have a HUGE toadstool and so many zoas with a bunch of sps...
get decent sps growth, but crappy polyp extension (I blame my clown gobies for this though as I had great pe before them).

I don't run carbon.

what are your experiences with it?

I am running a full on mixed reef. Zoas, lps, sps and one leather(toadstool). I do run carbon in a TLF reactor. I have removed my other leathers not because of what I thought they were releasing in my tank but because they can be so invasive. I too, wasnt getting good PE during the day(PE was good at night), until I started a Pohl's product dosing regiment( not full on Zeo but a few of their additives). PE is now crazy and my color is deepening.

care to share what you do dose?
thanks...:smile:

X2....I have same problem.

My reef is sps dominated but I also have a few large leathers, zoos, gorgonians, mushrooms, LPS ect. I always run carbon because of the leathers (and ZEO).

I have not seen any problems and have great polyp extension.

I dose Seachem "Reef Plus" amino acid supplement (would use Pohls Amino, but its crazy expensive). Then Pohls extra, Coral snow and the coral vitalizer. I dose as close to the same time as possible every morning before the lights come on( can do it in the evening after the lights go out if its more convenient). Most important things are the amino acid first, and the timing. The amino acids seem to condition the corals to extend their polyps fully allowing them to fully benefit from the other additives. A customer at the shop turned us on to this and I am very impressed with the results. His recommendation was the amino acids and the coral vitalizer but I have taken it a step further with the other additives.

nice one...
I'm going to look into the amino and vitalizer...
I just made a 250$ order from fragalot, so I just want to protect my new investment.

Not too sure on this, as I'm not zeo informed, but I think the fact that you run zeo would put you in a different class from me and the issues I might experience in my mixed reef...

I may be wrong though.

The Zeo system essentially starves the system of nutrients causing the coral to extend their polyps fully in an attempt to feed. It may be that your system is nutrient rich and thus your sps doesnt need to extend to its full potential to receive nutrients. Just my opinion.

In all honesty, my PE was fantastic before I had my clown gobies (x2) and they obviously nip at the polyps, I see it all the time.

before them, I was running a euro reef rs80 and I've bumped up to a Schuran jetskim 120 since then so my skimming has only gotten better and the only fish I have added since are a yellow assessor and 3 zebra dartfish.

I feed my tank 3 times a week, so nutrients are not the issue for me I don't believe, though cannot be 100% until I get rid of the clowns...