Aggressive fish with coral

[pogi pants]

Has anyone attempted this? I've heard of Porcupine puffers and Lionfish living with coral. But has anyone here had experience in doing so. and if so, what were the outcomes?
I'm really thinking of going reef but i don't want to get rid of my fish, i've bonded with my puffer

 

[chilwil84]

groupers and eels are fine (not counting knocking over) as long as you have a good fuge and lots of water changes puffers can be fine and can be problem depends on the fish

 

[jam1e]

I've had a fuzzy lion and I have my volitan lion with coral and no problems at all .. my sfe is fine with coral as well .. and harlequin tusk .. just no inverts

 

[psusocr1]

ive had all of my fish with corals before no problems.. puffers and triggers they say no to a reef because they will eat all of your inverts and might pick some corals but other than that id ont see why not..

 

[pogi pants]

sounds good so far. i know they'll eat the inverts, i just plan on getting a couple of those giant hermit crabs. are those ok with coral?
right now in my 125g i have:
-porcupine puffer
-antenneta lionfish
-spotted hawkfish
-valentini puffer
-foxface
what coral would be better with these fish, hard or soft? or does it matter?

 

[psusocr1]

i beleive the valentini are the reef "safest" puffer out there so you might be o.k with him but..
for the most part it says that puffers will nip at any and all corals so i think its a 50/50 shot... it just might be really bad when you add a nice $50 or so ddollar piece and they eat it

 

[pogi pants]

once i do start to add coral, i'll just add $5 frags and see how they do. there's a lot of local people that sell their frags for real cheap.

 

[pogi pants]

i have another question. should i change my wet/dry sump into a refugium or would a wet/dry be fine when i change to a reef.

 

[stanlalee]

Originally Posted by Pogi Pants
sounds good so far. i know they'll eat the inverts, i just plan on getting a couple of those giant hermit crabs. are those ok with coral?
right now in my 125g i have:
-porcupine puffer
-antenneta lionfish
-spotted hawkfish
-valentini puffer
-foxface
what coral would be better with these fish, hard or soft? or does it matter?
sounds like my dream list plus/minus a few fish. I think its the perfect list of fish to attempt what you are trying. I think the puffers are most likely to nip at corals. I only have a small valentini and only have soft and LPS corals. Has only nipped at open brain so I'll leave those types alone (fleshy polyp free corals: brain, candycane, meat/doughnut corals). Has left alone mushrooms, zoo's, frogspawn and hammer which is all else I have. Besides the puffers the fish on your list dont pose much risk to any corals. I've heard in rare cases underfed foxfaces may nip corals. the hawkfish and lions dont pose much threat to eating/nipping corals (do either just "nip" anything?)

 

[pogi pants]

none of them seem to be nippers. just my porcupine puffer will go crazy trying to get a piece of krill if it falls between rocks. other than that, none of them are nippers.

 

[ophiura]

The problem is often wanting the best of both worlds. With large aggressive fish, water quality tends to be compromised. Reef tanks - even with smaller community fish - tend to be lightly stocked to keep water quality pristine.
And large hermits are definitely not going to be reef safe.

 

[pogi pants]

when i test my water, the only thing i have a reading on is my nitrates at 20ppm. being a FOWLR it's not that critical. But i'm turning my wet/dry into a refugium. since i'll be removing the bio-balls and adding LR, macro algae and chaeto in there, wouldn't it cut down drastically on my nitrates?
also, thanks for the info on the giant hermit's. you're the first one to answer me on that.

 

[miamireefr]

I'll say this much... make sure you have a skimmer good enough to handle the bioload....

 

[jon321]

Originally Posted by ophiura
The problem is often wanting the best of both worlds. With large aggressive fish, water quality tends to be compromised. Reef tanks - even with smaller community fish - tend to be lightly stocked to keep water quality pristine.
And large hermits are definitely not going to be reef safe.
Agreed, even with a giant skimmer and fuge you wont be able to have any sort of a cleanup crew thats also reef compatible with most aggressive fish. Ontop of that, reefs generally contain huge quantities of live rock and corals grow into the spaces making for a dense stucture. Large, bulky fish would not find this comfortable and probably break or damage corals trying to get refuge or even just swimming/feeding.
Jon

 

[miamireefr]

I would say depends on tempermant of fish...going fully aggressive is definitely out of the question.
I for instance would consider my current crowd semi aggressive and I am now making my 90 which initially started as a fowlr into a reef.
Current occupants consist of
2' Snow flake eel
gold striped maroon
blue throat trigger
Although one may think the sfe knocks over corals he has only knocked over a set of shrooms I have had in the tank only 1 time of the 7 months he has been in the tank. I still plan to add a neon dottyback and maybe 2 other small fish....
At this point all fish get along and my sfe couldn't be a better citizen of the tank not harming any of my clean up crew. same goes for the trigger.

 

[pogi pants]

i'm planning on upgrading my skimmer. as of right now i have a seaclone 150. i'm not very fond of it so that's why i'll be upgrading. i think the only problem i'd have is the porcupine puffer breaking coral when he's trying to get a piece of food that's fallen into a crevice. i'd be sad parting with him because he's been with me since the start. also my wife would probably throw a fit if i chose coral over the puffer. haha.