One day I want to set up a 75 gallon with a Russell’s lionfish. I was originally planning on housing the lionfish alone, but what are your thoughts? Coral sounds complicated to keep alive, and I have trouble enough keeping plants alive, plus there are some fake coral decorations that look very lifelike. Does paint on decorations come off in salt water?

letsgetsalty:

snowflakeeel:

It doesn’t really come off but if it’s not good quality it might bleach over time. I would make sure to get some good quality decor, maybe custom made if you want it to look really good. 

They make some really nice looking fake corals today so i’m sure you’ll find some good ones! I’ll give a few other options though just to think about alternatives if you want. 

you could always just do a FOWLR with some nice live rock! I’ve seen some really impressive ‘scapes done only with live rock! you could also get some barnacles (not alive ones just the…. husks? whatever they’re called, they sell just the shell parts and they look really nice placed between some rocks. small fish love to dart inside of them but i don’t think a lionfish would fit. you could also get shells or beach glass or something)

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Another option that I only found out about a couple years ago is Macro Algae! 

You have to do some research because some of them can be as hard to take care of as some finicky corals (some are super easy tho) plus it’s a really unique look!

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some fish will eat it, which can be good or bad depending on how much you care about the macroalgae. I’m not sure if lionfish do or not. 

Also there are some beginner types of coral that are easier to keep alive! I don’t know much about these but maybe someone on reefblr could give you some ideas. 

Macro algae is cool! I have ‘red titan’ macro algae, and it’s super easy to take care of. Just don’t leave it out of water for too long and you’re good to go.

Most people think keeping coral requires a lot of work, but honestly there’s some coral you couldn’t kill if you wanted to. If you did want to venture into coral, really just make sure you have a decent light. I think you could easily get away with keeping green star polyps or xenia. Those corals are honestly bulletproof. We had some on live rock that was left untouched in a bucket for a couple months and it lived.

If you feel a little more adventurous you can go for zoanthids or mushroom corals. They tend to do pretty well, but you sometimes run into individuals who can be moody and picky. It be like that sometimes. But really, soft corals are a lot easier than you think!

I don’t know much about lion fish, but I can say with quite a bit of certainty you won’t have trouble with one messing with coral or algae. I’d recommend them for a species only tank – they’ll eat any fish or invert they think will fit in their mouth.

I owned a scorpion fish for a short period of time so did some research on that, so if you have any questions about feeding, going from live to frozen food, etc I can try to help! And if you have any questions about coral feel free to ask

Lionfish are gulpers. They hunt by finding a thing smaller than them that moves enough to get their attention and engulfing that thing with their mouth. Best kept only with very large things, or alone. Hermit crabs, snails, etc should be fine, same for brittle starfish. They ignore coral and macroalgae for not moving around. Totally reef-safe, just not reef-inhabitant-safe.