Reef Lobster And Coral

[smokinjoe2122]

SO I have a tank setup specifically for my purple reef lobster, a 10 gallon tank. I've slowly been turning it into a mini reef, and today I bought some dragon eye zoas, a frag. As soon as the lights went out, the lobster went up to the plug and ripped the zoas off. He then threw them out of the cave, floated somewhere into the back of the tank. I will tear it apart tomorrow to see if I can save anything. But, my question is, do they really eat coral/polyps? Or maybe the critters attached? I have some GSP which it wont touch, and plenty of mushrooms. Any ideas will be helpful

Thanks!

 

[milkton]

SO I have a tank setup specifically for my purple reef lobster, a 10 gallon tank. I've slowly been turning it into a mini reef, and today I bought some dragon eye zoas, a frag. As soon as the lights went out, the lobster went up to the plug and ripped the zoas off. He then threw them out of the cave, floated somewhere into the back of the tank. I will tear it apart tomorrow to see if I can save anything. But, my question is, do they really eat coral/polyps? Or maybe the critters attached? I have some GSP which it wont touch, and plenty of mushrooms. Any ideas will be helpful

Thanks!

Not sure if this will help but i just threw a purple reef lobster (forgot the species) into my 65g reef and its been about half a year now and nothing has happened except a few molting cases. I rarely see him, if so hes always hiding under a rock, luckily he hasnt touched any of my corals before (that i know of) and the good thing is that he helped me eat the fish that died of ich.

imo, if i had a choice i wouldnt buy a reef lobster again, it never comes out of the rocks... its just a waste of bio-load space and money. however, this is just my experience with one.

and the answer to your question is that it varies, just like fish. If ur lucky, u may get one that is reef safe, but u may also get one that isnt.

 

[-Nemo-]

Which one is the purple? Enoplometopus sp?
If so, it's as milkton said. It's kinda like a dwarf angel with corals.

Too bad it was an expensive way to find out

 

[smokinjoe2122]

Yes it is. Well this will explain what happened to my other colony polyps.

 

[smokinjoe2122]

Well the frag is mostly intact and was open today while unattached. I re-attached it to a small rock using superglue. I'm wondering if he was going after pods or something on the frag. I didn't do any freshwater dips with it. We'll see if he continues to harrass it. I'd get rid of the #40## lobster, but I've had him for like 2.5 years now.