Am I nuts?? I want to keep corals with non-reef safe fish (u

[Bubafat]

Ok, if you are just taking props from you're tank, i retract my obviously sarcastic remark i made. Good luck. You may want to try a few SPS, a guy i knew had a huge tank full of sps with a puffer, trigger and a few others without any trouble. It seems like the corals that are fleshy usually get nipped.

Good luck
Buba

 

[SPC]

I think we ought to archive this thread, we can use it as reference when anyone asks why there is an import ban.
Steve

 

[pathos]

extremists

fanatics

 

[SPC]

Realist

Steve

 

[esmithiii]

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote

SPS is not a good idea. They require perfect water conditions that do not exist in a FACT (fish and coral tank).

Is this a joke? I have SPS and fish in the same tank.

 

[pathos]

SPS is not a good idea. They require perfect water conditions that do not exist in a FACT (fish and coral tank). but seriously, you should try to keep a gonipora or a dendronepthea or a sun coral or or a harlequin shrimp or a BTA. you probably already know of the specific requirements of each of these. there is certainly not much research done in this area, with respect to keeping them with fish in a captive reef.

 

[dattack]

Hey send me some free polyps, mushrooms, and SPS if it's going to be snack food. My tank is kind of bare and I wouldn't mind having more diversity.

 

[esmithiii]

Pathos:

You should have said PFACT- Preditor Fish and Coral Tank. Get your acronyms right!

E

 

[plankton123]

smokenreef,

Actually, if I found a fish that could live off of mushroom anemone, then I could easily sustain it on an near infinit supply! Such anemone recover with weeks after been 'harvested' and one could easily setup a second growout tank and every week or so swapout rocks covered in mushrooms. The second advantage would be you would not have to puchase dead, froozen foods and longer to give to your poor fish and would always have fresh, life foods. However, I suspect there isn't such a fish that would live off only mushroom anemone and not eat SPS polyps.

Interesting thread, though.

Scott

 

[pathos]

heck no it's not a joke. I am talking about a predator style tank with puffers, triggers, eels, etc, like the one Mr. Milz is experimenting with. With the amount of food that is required to sustain this type of tank I would thiunk twice about adding SPS. Nitrite, Nitrates, Ammonia; you'd better have a darn good filtration system to take on SPS. What kind of fish and what kind of filtration do you have? I doubt if we're talking about the same kind of set up.

 

[pathos]

esmithii - ya got me! FACT is a much better acronym but PFACT is more specific. I suppose you would still pronounce it "fact" but anyways, I have always wanted to keep a pair of Harlequin shrimp. You'd have to feed them a chocolate chip starfish every few weeks, but their color and shape is worth it!

 

[M.E.Milz]

Naesco:
<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr> You sir are both irresponsible and nuts.
You have a dated attititude when you and others who support you think it is OK to experiment with creatures we strive to keep alive. <hr></blockquote>

I disagree for the reasons that I have already expressed. Nevertheless, you are certainly entitle to your opinion. BTW, every time we add a fish or invert to our tank, it is an experiment.

Question: Have you ever purposely killed anything in your tank? Flat worms? Aptasia? Fire worms? Mantis shrimp? Rock crabs? If so, then how do you distinguish this from what I am doing?

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote

It is OK for the benefit of the critters and the hobby and science, to advance our knowledge as is done by both scientists and expert reefers. But you are neither a scientist nor an expert by any stretch of the imagination.

Granted, I am neither a scientist nor an expert. I do, however, disagree that "hobbiests" cannot and should not strive to contribute to this hobby and the understanding of the animals we keep. To the contrary, I would venture to say the the majority of advancements that have been made in the last 10 years have been made by "hobbiests".

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote

Please read a good book like The Concientious Marine Aquarist and please stop what you are doing now.

Good book. Nevertheless, I do not believe that everything written in this book (or any other book for that matter) is gospel. These books reflect current understanding (and the opinion of the author), and are always subject to revision as more is learned.

Pathos:
<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote

SPS is not a good idea. They require perfect water conditions that do not exist in a FACT (fish and coral tank).

I agree and disagree. I maintain a lot of fish in reef tank, and I have no problems even though I feed this tank heavily (albeit not quite as heavily as my preditor tank). In addition, my 200g reef is set up almost exactly the same way as my 175g preditor tank. Both use the same Berlin style sump (w/ live rock), ETS750 skimmer, DSB, and a similar quantity of live rock. The only difference is that the reef tank has stronger lighting (250watt 6500K's vs. 175watt 10,000K's).

Update:

All the leather corals and the mushrooms appear healthy with no evidence of being nipped at by any of the fish. The yellow button polyps also look fine.

The brown/green button polpys are MIA. I do not think that these were eaten, but were probably pulled off of the rock and are most likely sitting on the bottom behind some rock. I will look for these later.

The star polpy colonies are ok, but have been pulled off the rock by the fuscus trigger (the colonies are laying on the bottom). I think that these would have been ok if I had done a better job of gluing down the edges. Loose edges seem to attract the trigger like a loose string attracts a cat.

Interestingly enough, the couple of small colonies of anacropora appear to be fine. This is surprising since these have very delicate branches. I did, however, glue these into somewhat protected areas.

I have added another leather coral and another colony of mushrooms.

[ January 22, 2002: Message edited by: M.E.Milz ]</p>

 

[Green Lantern]

Mike, I'd like to start off by saying that if done responsibly I don't think what you are doing is "evil". You are walking a fine line but it sounds like you have a fairly good grasp of the situation

. Congratulations on handling this topic so responsibly and without resorting to personal attacks. What a concept.

I don't agree with using the analogy of aiptasia or mantis shrimp being removed or killed as an argument for the simple fact that neither were intentionally purchased and if left alone could cause significant negative impact on a closed system, ie. the death of fish and/or corals (William Faulkner would be proud

).

Good luck.

 

[M.E.Milz]

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote

I don't agree with using the analogy of aiptasia or mantis shrimp being removed or killed as an argument for the simple fact that neither were intentionally purchased and if left alone could cause significant negative impact on a closed system, ie. the death of fish and/or corals (William Faulkner would be proud )

Perhaps. But on the other hand, I am not intentionaly trying to kill any of these corals. To the contrary, I am trying to add corals that will survive (and thrive) with these fish.

In any event, my point was to address what I perceived was an attempt to treat some animals (corals) as more important then other animals (fish). Or to attribute human feelings and emotions to corals (i.e., the analogy of corals being nipped to a person being punched).

BTW, I fully expected to receive a variety of opinions on this subject. That is why I started the thread (the title was purposely chosen to solicit responses, including negative responses).

In the end, I hope that I will be able to report that yes, certain types of corals can be kept with some fish that are generally considered non-reef safe. And that including these corals in a tank with these fish provides a more diverse and healthier environment.

 

[M.E.Milz]

Update (1-31-02):

All the leather corals are doing great (4 species), with no indication that any of the fish are nipping or harrasing them.

Yellow polyps are doing fine, but have not fully adjusted to tank.

Green and brown fuzzy mushrooms are doing well.

Green/blue flat mushrooms appear to have been eaten by someone over the past weekend (I don't know who).

SPS - anacrpora frags are still ok. Nobody appears to be interested in these.

SPS - a few of the yellow bali staghorn & purple montipora digitata frags are still ok. It seems that who ever was chewing on these has lost interest.

 

[M.E.Milz]

I have not had a problem with cords. Nevertheless, I would avoid them because I think that this can be an issue. I eliminated power heads from my tanks a little over a year ago. Heaters can go in the sump or the overflow chambers. If you are using a sump, I would hide the heater inside a piece of PVC that has been drilled to allow water to flow through, but not the triggers. You can do the same thing with power heads. just have the outlet poking through the side of the pvc.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the tips!

-Greg

 

[smokinreefer]

plankton123,
i agree with you on that. if you can sustain it by culturing your own corals for it to survive, more power to you.

some of you need to get off your high horse. stating your opinion is fine, even if it doesnt agree with what milz is doing. but to make slanderous comments is just plain wrong, and does not contribute to the discussion/experiment at hand. and who made you guys an authority on the reefkeeping science/hobby?! to say what is right/wrong/ethical in the hobby????

and just how does taking some frags from his thriving reef tank( have you seen his tank

)and placing them in a tank with larger fish contribute to the import ban. like i mentioned earlier, i dont see you guys making such a fuss when someone adds an angel(whether it is a dwarf/pygmy or regular) to a reef. and these are fish that are well known as possible coral nippers/eaters. and again, when people suggest that they flush or toss out excess xenias...is this not the same??

its not as if milz is going out and buying a box full of newly imported wild caught corals.

i bought a wild colony a couple of months ago. sadly, it has not survived. i thought i was providing it an ideal environment to live in. i guess i was wrong. maybe it is because i have fish in my tank. perhaps i will remove all the fish. then if something still dies then i will know that i am a bad person, with a bad reef tank. maybe i should sell all my stuff to someone who has never lost an animal in their care.

better yet, maybe one of you fellow hobbyists on this board who know all the "rules" to good reefkeeping can come over and set me straight.*even though everything else in the tank is healthy and growing*

sorry for ranting on your thread milz. but again, kudos to you and your experiment. good luck and keep us updated.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the update. I'm starting to think of going in this direction with my next tank. It's nice to have some one blaze the trail ahead of me.

Have you had any issues with triggers chewing on powerlines in the water? Heater/PHs?

-Greg

 

[M.E.Milz]

2-7-02 Update with photos

All of the leather corals and the yellow button polyps are doing great. Some of the sps frags still have some life (although they do look a little chewed on). I suspect that larger sps colonies might be ok.

I caught the dogfaced puffer chewing on the fuzzy mushrooms. I suspect this fish is responsible for the disappearance of the last colony of mushrooms.

For now, leather corals seem to be a safe bet, and I am considering adding a few more colonies.

Here is a link to some photos of this tank ("Mike's Office Tank"). They are not of very good quality (the color and contrast are way off), but they do show some of the corals and fish that are currently in the tank.

web page

Mike

[ February 07, 2002: Message edited by: M.E.Milz ]</p>