Decisions, decisions

Lowstorm · Jan 14, 2016

Do I want a peaceful community reef tank?
Or
Do I want a predatory reef tank?!?!

My tank is 125 gallons.

My ORIGINAL plans were for a regular-ole reef tank with a small group of flasher wrasses, a pair of clowns and some gobies

Now that I made my 'tank trying to kill you' post, I really want to do fish that will try to kill me.. in a reef. Instead of a group of flashers, perhaps a few small lions and leaf-fish, with the star of the show being a rhinopias

I know if I went for the dangerous ones, I'd have to get a good nutrient removal system going. Probably add a algae turf scrubber along with the skimmer and carbon dosing. Although I wasn't planning on having a super-ultra high end sps tank in the first place. I like lps and clams more than anything you can show me sps-wise.

The pluses and minuses

Normal reef:

Can reach in whenever I want to grab things,
only real risk is having the clowns attack me.
Can add small fish more or less whenever I want
if I got a 'show' fish, I can do any ole fish I want
Not really any minuses

Predator/stinger reef:

keeps my fingers our of the tank
Interaction with the big bad mothers is really fun
conversation piece
Minus=every time I add something, I have to know where all the fish are at all times
minus=no easy way to add fish willy-nilly. This could be a positive too though.
minus=no clownfish and gobies

I don't know of too many people that have full blown reef tanks with the predators. Yes, some people keep a lionfish in their reef tank, but that itself is pretty rare. I was already planning on making a column/arches tank, so the predators would already have access to dark places if they want.

AHHHHHH!!!!!!