Keeping Sweetlips

[jacrispy516]

I absolutely do not have a large enough aquarium to keep any sweetlips species. This is just a hypothetical question but I've always been fascinated by them and one day hope to get a large enough tank to keep them. I was watching some diving videos and noticed something interesting. I'd always see tons of small schools of cardinalfish, chromis, damsels and anthias swimming right near sweetlips with no concern. Obviously this is a massive reef not an aquarium but it got me curious. I looked on info about the harlequin sweetlips on liveaquaria and it said they have a peaceful temperament and eat primarily invertebrates. So do sweetlips not eat smaller fish because I always associated them with predator tanks? My plan is to one day build a massive Raja Ampat biotope and would be very intersting seeing them in there if they are ok with smaller fish. Anyone have experience with this or know anything about them? On a side note other than their massive size feel like they're very underrated. Not the biggest fan of the harlequin, but the oriental, striped, ribbon, and oblique banded sweetlips are such cool fish

 

[MarineandReef Jaron]

Something tried to describe to customers when I was at the LFS is that there are aggressive fish and predatory fish and those two things do not need to overlap. A sohal tang is very aggressive but not predatory and a lionfish would be predatory but not aggressive. Most people think that predatory and aggressive go hand in hand like with a queen trigger or tessallata eel.

My experience with sweetlips is that they are peaceful predators. If it can fit in their mouth it likely will get in their mouth but they will not mercilessly torment other fish like an aggressive trigger or tang would. They can be kept with large schooling fish like tangs, butterflies, squirrelfish, look downs, ect. As long as they are large enough they can't fit in the sweetlip's mouth.

 

[Big E]

I imagine you can keep a sweet lips in a large enough tank with smaller fish if you keep it fed well. I'm talking at least 6-800 gallons

My friend has had groupers in large tanks and they won't eat smaller fish if well fed for the most part. You're going to get some accidents at times. I'm talking one grouper in a very large tank.

He had a grouper that was 3' in a 700g tank that had anthias, chromis, damsels and other dither fish and they were out in the open all the time.

I wouldn't put any expensive fish in a tank like that.

 

[jacrispy516]

I imagine you can keep a sweet lips in a large enough tank with smaller fish if you keep it fed well. I'm talking at least 6-800 gallons

My friend has had groupers in large tanks and they won't eat smaller fish if well fed for the most part. You're going to get some accidents at times. I'm talking one grouper in a very large tank.

He had a grouper that was 3' in a 700g tank that had anthias, chromis, damsels and other dither fish and they were out in the open all the time.

I wouldn't put any expensive fish in a tank like that.

That sounds like an incredible thing to see.