A bit of a debate...

sparty059

Active Member
So, I've had my aquarium set up since August of '10. I'm reaching a crossroad at this point. I have Green Star Polyp, Hammer Coral, and Sun Coral (That I had from the start of the tank). My tank currently also has 4 turbo snails, and around 20-30 other snails. I also have a peppermint shrimp (only one from what I can tell as I haven't seen the second one in more than 2 months), an emerald crab, many brittle starfish, and other little starfish roaming around the tank that came as hitch hikers from the rock.
The situation that I have run into is that I'm looking at purchasing fish that are not reef friendly, and the last thing I would want is for some of the fish I want to buy to kill off my corals. Before I buy these fish, I wanted to know how well they would handle being in a 150G tank with each other first, and if this would be suitable for them...
I currently have 2 clowns, 1 lawnmower blenny, and 5 pyjama cardinal fish.
I want to eventually get a hippo tang, a dogface puffer, and possibly a lion fish. I want to get some other fish on top of that, but those seem to be the main ones I want to get.
Assuming I do get these and they're all compatible... I have a refugium down below... would the corals be suitable for living down there with the lighting I have? I have just a desk lamp CFL 16W (comparable to an incadescent 75watt)... I have a K1 in the tank, and it's a 20 gallon tall. I have lighting on for 7 or 8 hours, and the flow is light. Would it be acceptable to place the corals down there in case one day, these fish didn't work out how I wanted and then I could move the corals back to the DT?
 

bang guy

Moderator
The Puffer will try to eat all of those fish you mentioned.
The corals will be safe in the display tank though.
 

sparty059

Active Member
I was under the impression a Lion Fish would also eat corals? Would it eat any of my small fish also?
 

florida joe

Well-Known Member
I agree with Bang, I have never read any repeatable info as to lionfish eating coral, but I would think that they could be detrimental to any coral they perched on
 

sparty059

Active Member
So what you're saying is that if I were to get one, I could kiss my clowns goodbye? Even the one that is about an inch big so far?
Even if I were to get a Dwarf Zebra Lion? Or do you think he wouldn't be able to eat a clown/blenny?
 

florida joe

Well-Known Member
You have to make the determination of size if it fits in the mouth of the lionfish you buy it will eat or try to eat it
 
Top