Imagine this: 300 gallon tank, 100 gallon sump....thousands and thousands of dollars worth of high end SPS colonies and a 20 inch magnifica gigantica hosting a pair of GSM clowns. Then one day the owner decides he like the way sea apples look, so he just has to add one to the tank....For the life of me, I couldn't talk him into just making the extra 75 gallon tank just for sea apples...told him of the toxins and potential problems...3 weeks later I told him I had observed the vlamangi tang....14inches with streamers- picking on the apple...Again...I'm told don't worry about it. One week later I get a call in the middle of the night...there's something wrong with the tank, it's all milky white, and beginning to foam up, could I come by. Half an hour later, I walk into the office and almost upchuck...the sea apple has died...the magnifica is dead as a result and has been sucked into the tunze powerhead and turned into chum...every fish is belly up and the corals are gone and I mean just bleached white sticks...4 clams are dead, the anthias harem is dead, the fairy wrasse school, 2 dozen chromis and a purple tang, ALL DEAD. The skimmer is going crazy, there is foam coming over the side of the tank and out of the sump. It looks like someone dumped a gallon of laundry detergent in a Jacuzzi, except for the Gosh awful smell. 2 years of getting the tank perfect and one sea apple killed everything in a matter of hours. The owner is screaming...how could this happen...I tell him in 4 words..."That (^*$%& sea apple!" What are we gonna do...."we...We...WE...are you crazy...I told you a dozen times this was going to happen and that if it did, I was quitting...That was a promise..not a threat!" So I handed him the keys and left....I was sick for days. Gandolph the valmangi tank would eat from my hand and trusted me enough to let me lift him out of the water and he would splash me every morning as a greeting. He was the loss I still feel until this day...
Sea apples belong in their own species tank...PERIOD!!!
Beautiful...but deadly!