Reef Safe?????

[Hazel6880]

Ok I've read sooo many conflicting articles and gotten so much contradicting advice from LFS's and the net about what's reef safe and what's not..

I have had a FOWLR tank since last May.. my water parameters were finally perfect (Ph- normal, Alk- normal, Nitrate- 0, Nitrite- 0, Ammonia- 0) so I thought I could finally start bringing home some corals.. I bought a glove polyp and have had it for about two weeks.... every time I come home another polyp piece has been shredded.. and the rest of the polyps pieces are shriveled up.. by now only one opens.. I thought it was my crabs and took them out but am scared that maybe I'm over looking some thing.

Someone suggested maybe my coral beauty is eating away at it...I just called my "trusty" LFS to ask about the Coral Beauty.. (which I found numerous conflicting articles on whether or not they are reef safe)...and they said they are "perfectly reef safe" and suggested maybe the polyp is just disintegrating b/c "corals are like fish.. sometimes they just die" considering how expensive corals are... that response is pretty scary! lol I'm kinda at a loss for words right now.

I really appreciate any insight anyone can offer....

[NorthernReefer]

From all the investigating I have done in regards to Centropyge Angels, it is simply hit or miss whether they will nip at your corals. I went with the Flame Angel and have been very lucky so far.

[wozza]

i have had a coral beauty for a while now and before buying it i did quite a lot of reading about it, from what i read they are more reef safe than not.
and it has proven true for me i even keep it with a clam and it acts as if it were not there.

hope this helps james

[Ninong]

Centropyge angels are not completely reef-aquarium safe. Some are less risky than others but all of them have the potential to cause problems.

There are several points that have to be remembered:

1) An animal's behavior in a captive environment (a tiny little box of water) may or may not be the same as it's natural behavior. All animals adapt to their environment and this adaptation sometimes includes dietary changes. For that reason, even species that are not known to eat certain things in nature, will sometimes sample them in captivity, especially if their preferred natural food is not available.

2) Individual anecdotal reports on the bulletin boards have to be taken as a whole, not individually. Don't base your decision about an animal based on the experience of just a few hobbyists. You have to take the entire "body of evidence" into consideration. When you do that, you will find that some people have never had a problem with a certain fish, others had a problem with the same species from the very beginning and others had no problems at all for the first three or four years and then all hell broke loose.

3) It's all relative. How much risk are you willing to accept and how much damage are you willing to tolerate? Many people keep species such as Chelmon rostratus (Copperbanded Butterflyfish) and Centropyge bispinosa (Coral Beauty Angelfish) even though they occasionally cause problems. These people learn which corals are at risk and remove them rather than the fish. Obviously this depends to a great extent on the amount of damage.

4) The behavior of individual fish can vary, especially in captivity. Some fish may not cause problems and others may cause a lot of problems. And I'm talking about fish in the same species. For example, my Centropyge loriculus and C. bispinosa never bothered anything in my tank and I kept five Tridacna clams and a few LPS, too. Other hobbyists have reported problems from the very beginning, especially with open brains and clam mantles, which C. loriculus will sometimes take an unwelcome interest in.

[CSeaSee]

I agree with Ninong- basically, dwarf angels are a little bit of a gamble- you never quite know what you're going to get until you bring it home and add it to your aquarium. If you have the time, try to observe your aquarium at different times of the day to see how your angel acts. It may not be your angel at all, but something else. This includes night viewing.

[Hazel6880]

Thank you everyone! Your responses all seemed better than "corals just die for no reason" and at least there is some cause I can look for...relief! Ninong, that was a great explanation and made a lot of sense. I will watch my tank, specifically the coral beauty and determine the culprit and what I'm going to do about it.

Thanks again!

[zhenya]

To add to what Ninong had said already...
I think it helps tremendously if you first finish stocking your tank with corals and then add the angelfish. In my case, I can see that both of my angelfish sample stuff, but I fail to see sustained damage to any particular coral/colony or a clam.
Both angelfish were added to a reeftank that had plenty of corals in it.
Any new coral that I add I can see that first fish to investigate is the two angels.., but most of the time the corals that I add is the ones they had seen before.