Anyone ever had a sweetlips in a reef?

[Pandora]

Just saw these fish, LFS got a new shipment of spotted & striped... really neat looking! Went home and looked them up, unfortunately I know now that they grow quite large and seem to eat inverts and live foods for the most part. But some of you have really large reef tanks and not a lot of noncoral inverts, so was wondering if anyone had had one, and experiences. I saw a thread or two about people who have had them for a while, but it appears from reading outside that not all do great in captivity, can be hard to feed.

 

[Andrew]

They can be kept in a reef but will eat small snails, serpent stars, and some crustaceans.

 

[Blown 346]

I would not try a Sweetlips as they require a tank of atleast 150 gallons as they grow to about 3 feet in size.
They are very difficult to feed and to keep period. They should only be attempted to be kept under expert level care.
As for putting it in a reef I would only do so under the top conditions and with extreme caution as you could end up missing small fish, inverts since it is carnivourus.

 

[Pandora]

Yeah, I know, I have read the same, and have no interest in keeping one myself, since I only have a 75. But I'm looking for first hand experiences with people who have had them, because this is not always the same as the standard accounts, and it's just interesting to hear... curious if any attain that adult appearence in captivity that I've seen online. I know a lot of people group these in the category "leave them in the ocean", but I also saw a thread or two where they had one that was eating well and had lived for several years.