5 mos in beginners lessons!

[stratozyck]

I am 5 mos into my reef (69G) experience. Your local fish store and online forums will not tell you these following things.

- Aiptasia eating filefish will eat zoas. Its a matter of when not if. They do it fast and mine ate about 20 polyps in about 2 minutes before I took him back to the store. He hadn't touched a zoa before that point.

- Peppermint shrimp, in large numbers (>2 per 50G or so) might eat corals if hungry

- Bubble corals are NOT easy to keep. You have to feed them and your clean up crew will CONSISTENTLY pull food out of their mouths and/or rip their flesh open to get said food. Mine is now heavily damaged in its own 20G tank I spent $120 or so setting up just for it. It was a catch 22 - either I feed it and it gets mobbed by hermit crabs and shrimp, or I don't and it wastes away.

- You really probably should avoid hermit crabs and peppermint shrimp if you want any coral that you have to feed. Just get snails.

 

[ClownMan727]

This is just the beginning of the lessons you will learn the first year.

 

[chulerico]

yes, good tips, always important to do your research that goes a long way

Sam

 

[stratozyck]

Also, trustworthy LFS's are hard to find

Also, trustworthy LFS's are hard to find

I would add that the best thing to do is find a LFS that does it right and copy them. Early on you hear conflicting opinions (particularly with crabs and shrimp) and its hard to know who is right. When I found this LFS I was shocked at how few fish and critters were in their 600G display tank. I initially thought it was "boring" but now I see there was a very good reason to it all.

That being said - I love my crabs and shrimp! What I learned to do now is make sure they are well fed by target feeding shrimp pellets to my crabs and shrimp. Now that I removed the bubble coral to its own dedicated 20G tank (it was my favorite coral...) I don't think crabs/shrimp are an issue.

 

[fishchef]

This is just the beginning of the lessons you will learn the first year.

You forgot to say, " Grasshopper".