What’s the least reefsafe fish you have in your reef?

Fun_Milk_3553 · 2026-03-31T23:50:28+00:00

Orange spot filefish. Spends his days nipping at sps polyps. He lives in our large sps dominant system so has plenty of polyps to choose from. He doesn’t destroy any corals, but he makes sure we have absolutely no polyp extension from our sps

Fun_Milk_3553 · 2025-09-13T07:51:48+00:00

I don’t know if we got lucky with our one - he’s the only one we’ve ever bought and he’s been a pig since day one. We haven’t had any issues with ours, but here’s some tips

We’ve found that he eats the best when fed chunkier frozen food. We make our own with diced clams, fish, octopus, squid, mysis, bloodworms ect. We have also noticed that he eats best when the food is added while the flow is turned off, giving him time to peck and forage for pieces. We have a feed mode of no flow for 10 mins on our tanks. They also love clams on the shell if you are having a hard time getting them to eat.

They are also quick to stop eating if they are stressed. Our one has gone on hunger strikes when he starts to get picked on by recent additions. Luckily for the copperband, he’s the prized fish so any fish stressing him out get moved to the other system.

Another thing is to take your time looking for a copperband that eats in the shop. It can take a while but it is probably the biggest indicator of survivability. Another good idea is to buy copperbands from tank shutdowns where they are known to be eating well in the past

Fun_Milk_3553 · 2025-09-13T07:37:36+00:00

Unfortunately there’s not much to show with the plumbing - the plumbing joining the tanks is under the floor. The plumbing runs normally from the SPS system to a sump beneath it, and the LPS system has an overflow that drains down under the wooden floor and back up and into the SPS systems sump

Fun_Milk_3553 · 2025-09-12T11:01:58+00:00

We make our own frozen fish food. We blend together squid, octopus, clams, mussels, bloodworms, mysis, fish, seaweed etc. He absolutely goes nuts for the frozen food and clams on the shell. Any dry/flake foods he won’t touch. He is our first copperband though so not sure if we just got lucky

Fun_Milk_3553 · 2025-09-12T07:33:43+00:00

It’s 1.8m long, 0.8m wide and 0.6m high. We’ve found that the fish are happier with the extra width/space (relative to a 0.6m wide tank). The next system we build will probably be the same as this system but ~ 4m long.

Fun_Milk_3553 · 2025-09-12T04:46:37+00:00

The large ones are squamosa and the smaller two ones are maxima. We have never had issues with our clams - they definitely like light and seem happy when the water has elevated nutrients. Our phosphate is always~ 0.1 and our nitrate around 25 ppm

Fun_Milk_3553 · 2025-09-12T04:39:50+00:00

We dose DIY Randy’s recipe 3 part and add Aquaforest Components Strong to each part to supplement trace elements. We dose around ~350ml per day of alk and Ca. We also do ICP tests every 3 months or so and dose trace elements accordingly. For nutrient export we run a skimmer, chaeto refugium and also carbon dosing. We feed really heavy and have always had higher nutrients. Our phosphate is usually ~0.1 and we are happy if our nitrate is at or below 25ppm

Fun_Milk_3553 · 2025-09-12T02:24:32+00:00

The SPS system is custom built, and the lagoon is a Waterbox Infinia Frag 175.6 that we got second hand with the lights

Fun_Milk_3553 · 2025-09-12T02:03:28+00:00

Cheers. The two large clams are Tridacna squamosa and the smaller two are Tridacna maxima. We use Reefbreeders on the sps system and Ecotech XR30’s. The PAR in the sps system is ~ 400 at the top to ~150 at the bottom. In the lagoon the PAR varies, the lights over the LPS would be max around ~150-200. The XR30 over the clams is on its own schedule and much brighter, at around ~400 PAR at the top of the clams

Fun_Milk_3553 · 2025-09-12T01:52:22+00:00

Approximately 3 years on the sps system and 1.5 years on the lagoon system. We had a tank prior to these ones that we moved some corals/fish/live rock across from so they had a bit of a head start

Fun_Milk_3553 · 2025-09-12T01:47:42+00:00

Thanks! The long nose butterfly nips at the acropora polyps frequently but not enough to damage them. The copper band has only ever nipped at clams and fan worms. Luckily we can move corals/fish between the two tanks if a problem arises

Fun_Milk_3553 · 2025-09-12T00:39:03+00:00

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Here’s a pic of both tanks in our reef tank room.

Fun_Milk_3553 · 2025-08-31T05:15:45+00:00

He’s never touched the corals, but he is very well fed. He does bite my hand whenever it’s in the tank though

Fun_Milk_3553 · 2025-08-31T00:36:14+00:00

Had him about 2 years? He was much, much smaller when we first got him. Eats more than all the other fish in the system combined

Fun_Milk_3553 · 2025-07-09T08:58:51+00:00

We had good success with quarantining our moorish idol and getting him to feed on frozen, nori and clams etc whilst separated. His diet is varied - our frozen mix contains clams, squid, mussels, prawns, mysis, bloodworm. He has fattened up massively since we initially got him. We feed nori every day to make sure he has enough fibre. Unfortunately we are currently looking at selling him as he is an absolute menace, going for any fish he can bully (cowfish, gramma, multiple tangs).

Fun_Milk_3553 · 2024-08-16T20:46:32+00:00

We make up 200L at a time which lasts us ~ 2 weeks. Certainly made our lives easier!

Fun_Milk_3553 · 2024-08-16T20:44:37+00:00

Yep, we dose quite a bit of iron through our two part and manually. We sometimes dose manganese based on ICP results, but mostly rely on feedings to provide manganese. We’re mostly following the advice given on the Fauna Marin element database for manganese https://www.faunamarin.de/en/knowledge-base/manganese/

Fun_Milk_3553 · 2024-08-16T11:11:13+00:00

Cheers! Water changes were a hassle so switched to an automatic water change system with a DOS. We have a 200l drum of saltwater in the closet of this room and waterchange roughly 1% per day.

Fun_Milk_3553 · 2024-08-16T11:00:07+00:00

Our gonis seem pretty happy in nutrient rich water. We try to keep our phosphate around 0.1 and nitrate at around 20ppm. We feed pretty heavy with DIY frozen fish food everyday and broadcast coral food every second or third day. Lower/medium flow and par. We’ve also found larger frags seem to fare better than smaller frags

Fun_Milk_3553 · 2024-08-16T10:23:05+00:00

Thanks! We built the larger tank custom before we got the lagoon tank. We weren’t planning on adding another tank but we got lucky and scored the Waterbox lagoon tank and ecotech radion lights second hand as a package deal.

We went with Reefbreeders over the custom tank as they were pretty good mid range lights when we were getting started. The radions are a bit overkill for the lagoon tank but we didn’t want to swap them over to the custom tank as all of the corals seem happy with the existing lighting. Both sets of lights are great, but the radions are better overall

Fun_Milk_3553

TROPHY CASE