Wolf in fish clothing: What “reef safe” fish did you find not to be reef safe after all?

What “reef safe” fish did you find not to be reef safe after all?

  • Clownfish

    Votes: 23 8.3%
  • Coral Beauty

    Votes: 60 21.7%
  • Filefish

    Votes: 65 23.6%
  • Flame Angel

    Votes: 61 22.1%
  • Wrasse

    Votes: 34 12.3%
  • Other

    Votes: 86 31.2%

  • Total voters
    276

KrisReef

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Worst offender is my Tomato clownfish pair, the female tries to kill sps, clams, and anything that might grow into a "problem" for her anemone in their tank. New frags get routinely ripped off their anchors and dumped into the corner of the tank where she has made a waste pile of coral frags that had to be relocated. She dropped a clam into the mouth of her anemone, two or three times before I figured out how the clam was climbing uphill to jump off suicide bluff.
 

BigTimeIssues

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Bi color blenny at flesh off my stylo.

Kole tang ate 2 colonies(10 polyps or less) of zoas, one being utterly chaos.

Pencil Urchin ate some zoas.

Pin cushion urchin has eat some sps flesh(red planet.

None of the corals completely died.. but they have scars. Lol
 

AIRDADDY

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not a fish, but Emerald Crabs can go after your sps polyps! happend to some of my sps.
I literaly saw him/her do it. and as soon as i caught the crab and put it in the backchamber, the sps extended their polyps again.
Mine did this after I eradicated the algae from the tank. I had to start dropping Nori in the tank to distract him from picking at the Goni.
 

AIRDADDY

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It’s funny to see so many of the fish that I have owned and never had a problem with make this list. I believe that any reef safe fish can go Rogue if it’s not happy with the available food supply. The two fish that I would like to add are Foxface Rabbit fish and Copperband Butterfly Fish. The Foxface cleared my reef of all the Bubble Algae and then proceeded to mow down all the Xenia. The Copperband completely wiped out all the Aptasia and then proceeded to destroy my green Trachy, but never had a taste for the red one. I kept them both because they kept the tank clear of my most hated pest, and they never bothered anything else as long as they were well fed.
 

dashulis

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Heard from several people that tangs enjoy acans. So far my tangs are quite small and luckily haven’t nipped any of my acans (trying to build a collection of them, got about 20 different ones so far). I was recommended to feed the fish before feeding the corals, so they don’t pick of reefroids and corals while feeding.
 

BiocubeGuy

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Wolf in fish clothing: What “reef safe” fish did you find not to be reef safe after all?

“It will be fine” they said. “Of course, it’s reef safe” they said. "Everyone on the internet says that it will be okay, even the vendor I bought it from had it clearly marked as reef safe. So why did it eat my coral?" Have you ever had the experience where you bought a fish that “everyone knows” is reef-safe, only to find out that particular fish is NOT reef safe? Maybe it was that clownfish that truly seems to want to eat the hand that feeds it and doesn’t seem to be safe in any tank. Tell us about your experience with reef safe fish that ended up being a “wolf” in fish clothing!

ReefProFlameAngel.jpeg

Photo by @Reef Pro
My pick is my Valentina puffer. He is beautiful, and great with most of my corals and other fish, but he just loves messing with acans. Picks at them until they are no more.
 

vetteguy53081

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It’s funny to see so many of the fish that I have owned and never had a problem with make this list. I believe that any reef safe fish can go Rogue if it’s not happy with the available food supply. The two fish that I would like to add are Foxface Rabbit fish and Copperband Butterfly Fish. The Foxface cleared my reef of all the Bubble Algae and then proceeded to mow down all the Xenia. The Copperband completely wiped out all the Aptasia and then proceeded to destroy my green Trachy, but never had a taste for the red one. I kept them both because they kept the tank clear of my most hated pest, and they never bothered anything else as long as they were well fed.
I was thinking the same. I have 37 fish and 21 are tangs and give me zero issue
 

Paullawr

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Black and white striped humbug. Recommended from LFS due to owning a territorial dottyback.

All was well until it grew the size of about an inch and then all hell broke loose. No one said they make auditable grunts, nor relentlessly attacked every fish in the tank. Including my hand during maintenance. It killed two fish before if managed to strip the tank down enough to catch it and boy was that a several hour job.
Never again! Though to be fair I haven’t seen them for sale since.

Lovely looking fish but not one for a stocked tank.
 

Paullawr

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My “reef safe” aptasia eating filefish destroyed my LPS in a matter of days.
Yeah had one of those that did clear the aiptasia then went on to eat the expensive Zoas I’d spent a lot on. One of which was snacked on put before I’d dried my hand following placing it.
 

LPS Bum

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I would never trust ANY Angel (large or dwarf) in a reef. But up until a couple of years ago, I would have thought my Tangs were reef safe. Alas, they're not.

I have a Powder Brown that likes to nibble at Elegance coral polyps. A Hippo that likes to nibble at Cynarinas, and a Purple that likes to nibble at Trachyphyllia. Fortunately, none of these knuckleheads have gone after my Acanthophyllias or Scolymias yet, and they do seem to lose interest in the coral they're nibbling on if I cover them for a few days. But who knows what they'll nibble on next.
 

LPS Bum

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this is gonna be an unpopular opinion…
but tangs
are beginning to annoy the crap out of me!

have horrible (diva) attitudes
they eat like sewer dwelling pigs (never satiated!)
are bullies to their other tankmates
knock corals over
will thrash cynarinas
and fleshy corals
with their scalpel if they’re in their area…
steal food from the aforementioned corals (even with chunks of food floating in the water column!)
they pick up shells and stones and drop them on corals.

the list goes on and on

perhaps they’re a good fit in sps systems…
but in an lps system
where you have to feed corals
they’re a nuisance!
Agreed!

My Hippo nips at my Cynarinas. And my Purple nips at Trachy Brains and my Powder Brown nips at Elegance corals. Really frustrating.
 

AKL1950

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I’m beginning to think that all our fish are like people at an all you can eat buffet. Stuff we normally wouldn‘t eat we just have to try because it’s there and it’s free. I suppose we can’t blame the fish. We feed them frozen meat of every kind. They figure out our corals taste the same as what we feed them. Even my tangs gobble up the meaty pieces I feed them everyday. When the fish figure out a Zoa or whatever taste the same as their daily feeding, it’s no wonder they think it’s just more food For them. Just saying.
 

Crispy1

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Emerald crabs, males specifically, get large, knock over rocks, members in my reef club swear they have attacked and eaten slow fish ( and not bubble algae)
 
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