Aggressive Reef

[OceanDweller]

Was wanting to know why more people do not set up aggressive reef tanks. I would love to have a tusk one day in a predominantly sps tank. What other inhabitants do you think would fare well? I assume a cleanup crew would be out of the question. Thank you for your input.

Brad

 

[AquaKnight]

Because it's tough to keep the tank conditions up to SPS standards and/or they have fish, that pretty much no corals are safe. Not to many corasl gets past a large guniea fowl puffer or queen angel lol.

 

[OceanDweller]

Yeah those are extremely aggressive fish though you mentioned. There are some of the larger angels like the passer and majestic that are hit and miss, potters, etc. Also the snowflake, zebra, and gold moray. There are the bluethroat, niger, and crosshatch triggers. The harlequin tusk, valentini puffer, some of the larger wrasses like checkerboard, lionfish, and I am sure I am living some out that are not good with inverts as a whole but I have seen every one of these fish in a reef tank for more than a year and have kept a couple for a long time in the reef. I saw somebody on here two years ago with an antennata lionfish in there reef with a couple of tangs I believe and it was beautiful.


I agree with the bio-load though if you had a large enough sump coupled with two skimmers I do not see why it could not be a realistic goal. I was just thinking about color...


Started a possible future aggressive sps list possible additions and order, what do you think?
Checkerboard Wrasse large
Harlequin Tusk Australia medium/large
Bluethroad triggerfish Pair medium/small
Large5X blue devil Damselfish
Radiata Lionfish Small
Majestic angel
Passer Angel

240 Square Rimless Cube With Starphire, could include Tusk, Wrasse, Lionfish, Both angels, Both Triggers, Damselfish and full SPS IF I Had about a 300 gallon Sump and 50 gallon Frag Tank

?

 

[tylorarm]

I have a checkerboard (5") and had a tusk for two years (6"). IME the checkerboard was harder on motile inverts than the tusk. The tusk mostly checked out the rocks before the lights were on, then cruised around in a leisurely manner util MH's off (Actinic still on) when he'd hide in his cave. Checkerboard is studying rocks relentlessly. Both eat small snails and pep shrimp. Both seem to coexist with cleaner shrimp. Tusk ate a couple acro crabs that got careless, but toyed with a emerald but latter left alone. Both left hermits alone (although checkerboard i've only had a few months). I really like both of these fish. I also had a Bluethroat that never bothered anything but jumped (only fish i've ever had jump).

 

[AquaKnight]

Eh, I would have concerns about the Passer. They have earned the name "King Angel" for a reason. Someone said on another board that they have seen a large passer bullying a large clown trigger. I would knix the lion if you plan on keeping the Passer.

 

[OceanDweller]

I was possibly thinking about the passer as a last addition at a juvenile state, this is extreme preliminary research as I have not even got the tank together yet, "I need to figure out what I want to keep, size, flow, lighting, etc. before I jump into the deep end." I know I want sps and a large tank, just not sure about semi-aggressive.