Porcupine and Live Rock

[GreatPumpkinator]

OK, so, I've acquired a nice large saltwater tank setup just recently, that has about 100 LBS of live rock in it. It has 2 clown fish, a royal goby, and a hermit crab...which we are going to trade at the LFS for one of their baby porcies...(finally a tank that can hold a porcy, my dream is coming true).

My question is this: Are there any kind of mushrooms/corals that are toxic to the puffer? We're not sure exactly what's in the tank, but from what we've been told it has red, blue, and purple soft mushroom corals. Are any of those toxic to a porc? I'd obviously like to know before we do the trade.

Oh, and we got a hella deal on this setup. Probably $1500 - $2000 in equipment and fish, etc....we paid the guy $200 for it all! The tank was a custom setup, and obviously came with everything we needed to run it.

I'm providing a picture of the tank, and a somewhat closeup of some of the live rock.





Yes, I know that the tank isn't very clean at the moment...but that's the way the guy had it...he gave it up because he just did not have enough time to keep it anymore.

We are scraping that crud off ever chance we get...it's a lot of work!

[Pufferpunk]

Nice shrooms! Your puffer won't eat them if they don't taste good (& they don't). Should be fine. What size tank is it? Fantastic deal!

[GreatPumpkinator]

Nice shrooms! Your puffer won't eat them if they don't taste good (& they don't). Should be fine. What size tank is it? Fantastic deal!

It's a 90 or 100 (I keep forgetting). It'll be temporary while he's a baby...I'm in the process of acquiring a 150 at the moment, that'll be his permanent home when I get it.

[Myaj]

Nice! It looks like a 90 gallon.

Leave the coraline algae on the back, don't bother scraping it off, it'll come right back. The shrooms are gorgeous, the ones I see locally are always dull colors, the red and blue are nice and bright.

[bonnie3188]

ooh im so jealous of those mushrooms as well! I only have crappy dark green ones in my tank, Australias supply isnt too good.

Coraline algae is a sign of a healthy tank, and many people think it looks good to have it covering the back glass. I would either scrape it all off (which would be quite a task, and will grow back unless you kept up the maintanance) and put on a background- i like just colours eg. mine is dark blue. This covers all the cords down the back of the tank, and makes it look deeper IMO. Or leave the coraline- you'll be looking at the porc so much you wont even notice it !

[petebsbll]

Not trying to ruin your plans but I personally wouldnt put a Porc in a 90. These guys are messy once large and need a lot of food which means they produce a lot of waste!!! I think a porc would out grow a 90 eventually. I have a 12 inch stars and stripes in a 125 and he is the only fish and I plan on keeping it that way for a while due to the nitrates still being unstable. He produces as much waste as a small dog!

[BubblePUffer]

I think a sump and refugem is a good idea if you want Porcy in there, don't miss a huge skimmer that at least over skim, so basicall you looking for a skimmer can do 200-250g tank. It help keep the reef tank nice and water clean for you. Most aquarium Porcy will grow to around 1' but some might go bigger.