Non reef safe fish with SPS?

[lsu_fishfan]

Has anyone had success with non reef safe fish and SPS? I know some have had success with triggers, dwarf angels, and smaller pufferfish. But what about larger puffers(dogface) and angels(emperor, queen, blue face)?

These are some of my favorite fish, and I'd love to have some in my 250 but not sure if I would be able to have thriving SPS along with them.

Thanks for your thoughts/experiences.

 

[axio]

Going to be a very hit or miss situation in my opinion. The safe answer is... no it is not doable with those fish. But you won't truly know until you try it... and just because it worked for some one else doesn't mean it will ever work for you.

Then keep in mind in most situations people are able to only make it work for so long... typically you seen one of the fish randomly deciding it wants to eat coral one day, even though it had touch any before. I have seen fish that have been in systems for multiple years all of a sudden decide they want to start chomping corals out of the blue.

 

[frag freak]

It's a crap shoot.... I watched coops clown fish nip his WD and ate all the flesh off of every stick he had in his smaller tank.

you just never know.

 

[ecoreefguy]

Even "reef safe" sometimes eat stuff they don't usually.

 

[schwaggs]

I doubt the fish you list would be safe with SPS. You could, however, add certain wrasses, hawkish, etc. that aren't reef safe due to their appetite for inverts.

 

[reeferman]

i have a scribbled angel and copperband.the scribbled does nip at acros but doesnt do damage.mostly the acro slime after i've fed.the copperband doesnt touch anything but aiptasia.everyone freaks out when they see a fish nip but you have to really observe and see if its actually doing any damage.

 

[jennm]

Definitely hit and miss. Copperbands, for example - I've seen some that were model reef citizens and others that were coral-mowers.

The toothy fishes are likely to chomp on SPS to grind their teeth down. I had puffers and I kept them with soft corals and they left them alone, but I wouldn't have put LPS or SPS with them because they'd gnaw on them. I used to feed them mussles on the half-shell and they'd chomp those to bits in short order to help grind their teeth down.

Any fish is a gamble - even fishes that shouldn't nibble on corals, can.

Jenn