Sfe

[dicemanj]

Can you put a SFE in a tank with a few Yellow Polyps, Zoos, and Mushrooms. Is the only danger that the SFE will topple the rocks? What about a Niger. Or will they eat the corals.

 

[birdy]

how big is your tank? Generally you do not put eels and triggers in reef tank because they are voracious eaters and mess up the water quality, most aggressive tanks have higher nitrate levels than reef tanks. I don't believe the sfe or trigger would harm corals directly (other than the sfe toppling rocks). If you are planning to stick to corals like polyps and mushrooms then you will probably be okay, if you want more sensitive corals then you should bypass the aggressive fish. Also the aggressive fish will eat your cleanup crew, the snails and crabs are important for algae cleanup in a reef tank, because of higher lighting for corals you normally have more algae in a reef tank vs aggressive tank.

 

[dicemanj]

Thanks for the reply Birdy. They are in a 125 with PC lights. I just wanted to add a little more color to my tank so I thought I would try a few simple corals, shrooms and polyps. I also have a 55 reef, but was not sure on mixing the two. My nitrates stay around 10-15 with 5% water changes. So far no one has eaten much of my clean up crew, I re-did the rocks yesterday and found more crabs than I thought I had.
Thanks

 

[birdy]

You know something that might be interesting is to do a tank like this with some non-photosynthetic corals and gorgonians, then you could feed the crap out of the tank and not worry about your other corals. It would certainly take a lot of research though, I am not necessarily recommending it, it was just a thought.

 

[dicemanj]

I am not sure I understand the non-photosynthetic coral part. What are they? Any idea of where I could research them?
This sounds interesting.
Jason

 

[birdy]

There are types of corals that are non-photosythetic, they get all or most of their nutrients from feedings not light.
look for sun coral, carnation coral, A lot of the gorgonians, goniopora (this do not do very well in captivity). Like I said I am still not sure if this would work well, as these corals do need frequent feedings, but I am not sure if they would do well in a "dirty" (high nitrates, phosphate) environment.