Has anyone had success with keeping a changing emperor angelfish with some lps
hammer torch frogspawn bubble pearl open brain closed brain lots of zoos (black fire and ice,purple abyss,pink and green) elegance chili's yellow toadstool and most imp. a large 22 polyp blue/orange florida ricordea mushroom coral ? i have a 150 gallon RT tank with lots of caves and LR maybe a good 110 lbs. with very mature LR with sponges all over the LR in the caves and i feed the emperor 2x a day a diet of mysis shrimp, formula 1 and 2 frozen prepared foods, sometimes pellets formula 2 and 1, and marine algae or nori- not all in 1 day but i mix it up. I added the emperor- 4 inches last to a tank of 3 yellow tangs small,pair of ocellaris clownfish,tuxedo damselfish,orange and yellow neon dottyback,powder blue tang small.I also have some SPS Montipora encrusted corals- thats have been fine so far after 1 month i havent seen any issues since i keep him well fed, but i know its a risk and i monitor carefully.I ocassionally see him nip at some sponge growth thats on the ricordea rock, and nip rarely at some zoos but haven't seen him touch the elegance hammer tourch brain bubble corals- my concern is i have a 240 gallon FOWLR tank but I love this fish and i would love to keep it at least until he/she is an adult or larger in the reef tank. I see and monitor him carefully nipping at the LR all the time which has sponge growth and coraline algae on it and after a month mostly hes in caves and hiding until he wants some food and even then the yellow tangs are way more active. The emperor has let the cleaner or skunk shrimp clean him and doesnt seem that aggresive even to other tankmates, but he is in the process of changing from juvy to adult.He does snap at very small nasarius snails if they come on the glass during the day, but only very tiny ones. So my question is can this be done if monitored and kept well fed will the emperor angelfish not eat my very expensive Aussie LPS corals, i do monitor him and feed him alot. I have an excellent Custom wet/dry (i use LR) for a tank up to 500 gallons, and an Aquamedics Protein Skimmer thats very good also for a tank up to 400+ gallons.So even with feeding alot the nitrates are in the RT less than 2.5.
I keep the Temp at 78F and the Salinty 1.023 the PH-8.2 the Ammonia -0 Nitrites 0.1 (trying to get that to 0 as soon as i do another mini water change) i keep the Calcium at 550 and ALk a bit high, 10-12 dkh. The fish look great really bold colors and the corals seem to be thriving under 1 250W HQI MH lighting with a 14k Phoenix lamp, and 4x65 PC lighting. I have a Koraliya PH i think its around 1400 GPH and a Mag 18 return pump. the run across the top of the tank and to some degree create a wavemaking like current/flow. I have a 4 inch SB of premium Florida keys sand. I'm new so i would appreciate any advise or anyones success with this kind of situation, I'm sorry if i put too much info- wasn't sure what to add or not so i put in my setup.Thanks everyone for advice/help and experiences.
) As a changing subadult, the emp ate every single zoanthid in the tank - probably well over 200 polyps. It didn't bother any leathers, Turbinaria, gorgonian or mushrooms. (The dogface puffer ate all the mushrooms.)
