Red Sea Fan: High Maintenance

The Red Sea Fan is red in color and looks just like a stringy fan in the water. It not difficult to take care of but it's not suggested for the beginner. If you've had a tank established for over 6 months to 12 months you will have no problem keeping the Red Sea Fan alive. These fans do not require a high powered light like some types of hard coral will. This means that you can place the Red Sea Fan in any spot in your aquarium. If you have live rock in your fish tank you can place the Red Sea Fan on top of any level of rock. I would suggest keeping the top section of your fish tank open so that you can place coral that needs a lot of light. You will also want to keep the areas closest to the filter open because some types of coral will require a lot of water current.

The problem with the Red Sea Fan is it works like a fan does. As debris floats around in the water, the Red Sea Fan will catch everything as it floats by. If you have green hair algae in your tank, the pieces that break off will end up stuck to your Red Sea Fan. You will need to clean the Red Sea Fan off and get all of the algae off of the coral. If you do not remove the debris from the fan it will slowly start to deteriorate.

Just like most other types of soft coral or polyps you will need to keep the temperature of the tank at 72 to 76 degrees. You will also need to keep the salinity at a range of between 1.022 and 1.024. I would suggest keeping the salinity at 1.023, just in case the salinity level starts to drop. If you don't keep the temperature and salinity at the right level, the Red Sea Fan will slowly start to go downhill.

I know that this might sound funny to you but you will need to feed the Sea Fan. You can feed the fan different types of food that is designed for coral and you can also feed the fan brine shrimp. You will also need to purchase a lot of different supplements to place in your tank. The soft corals will require Iodine and Trace Elements. The Red Sea Fan requires a lot more supplements than just Iodine and Trace Elements. You will also have to purchase some type of calcium supplement as well as many other types of supplements. As you can see, the Red Sea Fan can be a lot of work!