Quick update. 3 weeks tomorrow, the little guy has gone through about 90% of aiptasias. He is very active, constant nipper. He does nip at some SPS once in a while but still hasn't touched the hammers. I feed frozen food a litle more often to keep him quiet. So far, I find that keeping a butterfly in a reef is not such of a big deal if you can live with the fact that they do nip at corals. He has not destroyed anything, he is peaceful, hardy, active and such a beautiful specimen! I may add a raccoon as soon as I can find one. Of course, I don't keep very expensive SPS and the ones I have, have grown so big that I don't really care for them. I know they will survive (biggest Monti is about 20'' by 12'') . So, after all I read about keeping butterflies in your reef ,(outside of the common reef with care ones) I can now say that it can be done as long as they get enough food, a big enough tank with a lot of grown up corals and not being too sensitive about coral nipping. I did not notice less polyp extension so far and the tank is now almost clean of pest anemones. Will I keep him? Absolutely! But if I would have been in the situation where I had a smaller tank, I would have probably tried to go the ''shrimp'' way instead. If you want to get rid of pest anemones, do your research, but if you can live with some nipping, I would still consider Auriga butterflyfish as an option.
pacificeastaquaculture.com
Thanks!
