Aiptasia eating File Fish also eats rock flower nems

[ApoIsland]

At the bottom of this pic you can see a bunch of baby rock flower nems. I put one of the nems along with some zoas and various lps frags in the sump with the file fish during quarantine and he left it alone for a week. Added the file fish to the main tank and he was a model citizen for about 3 days. Never ate aiptasia though. On day 4 or 5 I get home from work and all baby nems were gone and the adults were curled up.

Obviously I should have had him down in the sump for another week or two. Lesson learned. Thanks file fish. RIP baby nems.

On a positive note....he did rid the sump of all the red flat worms within 3 days.

 

[Wen]

At the bottom of this pic you can see a bunch of baby rock flower nems. I put one of the nems along with some zoas and various lps frags in the sump with the file fish during quarantine and he left it alone for a week. Added the file fish to the main tank and he was a model citizen for about 3 days. Never ate aiptasia though. On day 4 or 5 I get home from work and all baby nems were gone and the adults were curled up.

Obviously I should have had him down in the sump for another week or two. Lesson learned. Thanks file fish. RIP baby nems.

On a positive note....he did rid the sump of all the red flat worms within 3 days.

beautiful nems!

I feel your pain. My CBB polished off all aptasia, then 8 adorable rfa babies and then picked the adult rfaS to death. No more rfa for me.

Are you going to keep the filefish or the adult rfaS?

 

[Katrina71]

They do look similar. I can see the confusion. Maybe they taste yummy too.

 

[canadianeh]

noob question, when do you add file fish into new tank? do you wait until you see aptasia? If not, what do you feed it if there is no aptasia in your tank?

 

[ApoIsland]

beautiful nems!

I feel your pain. My CBB polished off all aptasia, then 8 adorable rfa babies and then picked the adult rfaS to death. No more rfa for me.

Are you going to keep the filefish or the adult rfaS?

File fish is back in the sump and will stay there until I have time to sell his sorry butt to someone with a live rock / sps only tank.

 

[ApoIsland]

noob question, when do you add file fish into new tank? do you wait until you see aptasia? If not, what do you feed it if there is no aptasia in your tank?

He eats mysis like a pig so add him whenever.

 

[piranhaman00]

Aiptasia are anemones after all

 

[ApoIsland]

beautiful nems!

I feel your pain. My CBB polished off all aptasia, then 8 adorable rfa babies and then picked the adult rfaS to death. No more rfa for me.

Are you going to keep the filefish or the adult rfaS?

Sorry to hear about your cbb vs the nems. I have cbb also and it will be an easy choice to take that fish out if he starts eating the adults. Good thing he doesnt even eat aiptasia at this point...only mysis.
How long did it take for him to kill the adults once he started picking?

 

[ApoIsland]

Aiptasia are anemones after all

Yes. Should have seen that one coming. Stupid move by me.

 

[ApoIsland]

They do look similar. I can see the confusion. Maybe they taste yummy too.

Apparently they taste way better since the fish never touched an aiptasia...

 

[Wen]

Sorry to hear about your cbb vs the nems. I have cbb also and it will be an easy choice to take that fish out if he starts eating the adults. Good thing he doesnt even eat aiptasia at this point...only mysis.
How long did it take for him to kill the adults once he started picking?

It took about 2 wks per adult.
I couldn’t reach nems and had too many corals on the rock structure to tear it down.

 

[ApoIsland]

It took about 2 wks per adult.
I couldn’t reach nems and had too many corals on the rock structure to tear it down.

That's good to know it takes a while. I have my cbb eating out of the net so it will only take a few moments from when I first notice the nems getting bit if it goes that way. Fingers crossed. He never touched an aiptasia in quarantine so hopefully he does not have the taste for any nem.

 

[jabberwock]

...

 

[mdb_talon]

noob question, when do you add file fish into new tank? do you wait until you see aptasia? If not, what do you feed it if there is no aptasia in your tank?

Filefish are omnivores that generally are not especially picky and generally pretty easy to feed. The variety we call "aiptasia eating" is pretty much the same. Aiptasia is not their only diet and in fact some may not eat aiptasia at all.