Butterfly fish in the reef Aquarium

[Angel_Anthias lover]

LiveAquaria® - Chaetodon bennetti

 

[Zionas]

Recently got a 5-foot tank and planning to keep a pair of Heniochus Acuminatus. Not sure if it’ll work out. 5’x2.3’x2’ tank.

Hope they can give me the butterfly experience with the hardiness. Are they beginner friendly?

 

[AC1211]

Recently got a 5-foot tank and planning to keep a pair of Heniochus Acuminatus. Not sure if it’ll work out. 5’x2.3’x2’ tank.

Hope they can give me the butterfly experience with the hardiness. Are they beginner friendly?

Your on like every thread with a different plan for your tank in most threads you should make an initial decision with easy fish then stick with it.

 

[JMM744]

Recently got a 5-foot tank and planning to keep a pair of Heniochus Acuminatus. Not sure if it’ll work out. 5’x2.3’x2’ tank.

Hope they can give me the butterfly experience with the hardiness. Are they beginner friendly?

That butterfly will outgrow that tank in no time. Mine has gotten almost too big for my 180 in about a year and a half. Got it very small too. They grow fast and eat a lot. Cool fish but mine is getting sent elsewhere.

 

[Shredded]

Tanne said:
Yes they do. And please do not underestimate their appetite for corals. It will surely not be limited to Pocillopora only.

OK, so, still waiting on shipments to start arriving again to get my butterflyfish, but in the meantime, bringing this back to topic, I was talking really big about getting these butterflyfish and letting them eat coral while they learned to eat other things and how the healthy coral population could absorb any damage without notice..... Well, that's all well in good until my new little juvenile Regal Angel decides she likes coral. It is now joining in with the other fish at feeding time but it has starting munching on the Digitatas. it has a "path" thru the corals and over the rocks that it uses and there is a red Digitata that it has started eating along that path. It has also taken a nip here and there of my bubblegum. And I definitely did underestimate it's appetite for coral as I really didn't expect this, and talk about the initial panic. So, I have calmed down, trying to feed a lot and seeing if the behavior will decline since alternative foods are available. I may have to modify the Butterflyfish plan. So far, My acros have not been touched.

 

[pcon]

Tanne said:
Yes they do. And please do not underestimate their appetite for corals. It will surely not be limited to Pocillopora only.

OK, so, still waiting on shipments to start arriving again to get my butterflyfish, but in the meantime, bringing this back to topic, I was talking really big about getting these butterflyfish and letting them eat coral while they learned to eat other things and how the healthy coral population could absorb any damage without notice..... Well, that's all well in good until my new little juvenile Regal Angel decides she likes coral. It is now joining in with the other fish at feeding time but it has starting munching on the Digitatas. it has a "path" thru the corals and over the rocks that it uses and there is a red Digitata that it has started eating along that path. It has also taken a nip here and there of my bubblegum. And I definitely did underestimate it's appetite for coral as I really didn't expect this, and talk about the initial panic. So, I have calmed down, trying to feed a lot and seeing if the behavior will decline since alternative foods are available. I may have to modify the Butterflyfish plan. So far, My acros have not been touched.

Austin Lefevre talks about how his angels would decimate corals that encroached on their path through the tank, that may be some of what you are describing with the regal.

 

[Shredded]

Austin Lefevre talks about how his angels would decimate corals that encroached on their path through the tank, that may be some of what you are describing with the regal.

Well that would explain why it appears to only nip at those pieces in its runway. It has now spread out thru the tank but only seems to bother those in her runway on her home rock. That path was the only one that it used when it was new and stayed close to home. It was sheltered and had escape routes. Now that it has started to use the entire tank and eat with the others, I hope the behavior will decline. Some of the nipped areas have started to regrow polyps. When it first came in, it had a good belly, not big but now skinny. Behind the head it was a little leaner than I cared for but that would be accounted for by its time in captivity. Now it’s as fat as a little pig. I saw it nip Pocillipora once that was in its runway. Unfortunately there was some head shaking, and I haven’t seen that happen since. I guess my experiment just started sooner then expected. We’ll see how long I have the guts to sit it out.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Pyramid butterflies

 

[Shredded]

Say hello to my little coral eater...
As of today she is brave enough to swim in the open and is very curious about me.

 

[Shredded]

Say hello to my little coral eater...
As of today she is brave enough to swim in the open and is very curious about me. If you’ll notice on the wall the new colonies of Pocillopora beginning to grow.


[

 

[Shredded]

Sorry for the double post. I tried to add a little more to it and the whole thing reposted as well.

 

[JMM744]

Pretty fish. Hope it adapts to something besides corals

 

[Shredded]

Its' been a while but I have an update on this thread. My regal is fat and happy, eats with the rest but still has done and still does damage to some corals. It does appear that only those in his runway are in danger. Unfortunately, one of my favorites, a large no name colony, blue with yellow tips has taken some damage. Not awful, a hidden area back in the shadow where he swims back and forth all day. Its been a few months now and she has put on some size and a fat belly. The big news is, my LFS contacted me and said that they had a small Chaetodon Trifaciatus coming in. So last night, I drove to the store at 11pm and bought a small Copperband and Melon butterflyfish. Now, when I say small, the Melon is about the size of a quarter. I acclimated them last night, got them situated. All the lights were out for the evening but I left the under tank LEDs on to let them have a little "glow" to find a cave to sleep. I got up this morning and sat and watched as the lights came on and slowly grew in intensity over an hour. Both fish came out immediately. The Copperband is a bit thin but she started to pick at the rocks right off. The Melon immediately began to feed.... Unfortunately it did not start grazing on the Pocillopora as it went right after the digitata and Acros. I believe this is because what the wholesaler shipped is not Chaetodon Trifaciatus but Chaetodon Lunulatus. Very, very closely related fish, but different oceans and different diets. (The caudal peduncle on the Trifaciatus is yellow, while the Lunulatus is white) If you google them on the internet you will find many many mislabeled pictures. Was sick to my stomach all day long. My dealer said pull him out and bring him back and we'll try again, but trying to get a fish the size of a quarter out of a 300 gallon tank would be a disaster. I logged into my camera many times today to watch. Sure enough, he stayed right in the same area and was picking at the Digitata. So I thought about what to do. I do have a well made, fish trap, and if it came down to it, I could probably bait it with Digitata frags as I have many, and it may take awhile, but I could possibly get him. Here is what was interesting, I was dreading coming home and seeing the damage. When I walked in, he was there, right in a big Bubblegum Digitata munching away, but... there was no obvious damage. I had watched him all day, the Digitata would pull in its polyps every now and then, but they would come right back out but there is nothing like the damage caused by the Regal Angel.. no stripped tissue, nothing, it looked completely untouched. Yes, he is small, but still... Maybe they eat the slime coating and not tissue... I have my fingers crossed. Now that really doesn't help with my Pocillopora issue but at least my corals aren't being stripped. So, I was pretty confident when I started this experiment, now, not so sure. Trying to stick with it.

 

[Shredded]

Tanne said:
Yes they do. And please do not underestimate their appetite for corals. It will surely not be limited to Pocillopora only.

OK, so all...
This has been a total failure. Yes, I did receive the wrong fish, Lunulatus and not Trifaciatus, the Oval and not the Melon. The only visual identifier being the caudal peduncle is white rather than yellow, different oceans, different diets... I will never know as I am NOT willing to try this again. This fish is the size of a quarter, maybe.... yet yesterday it stripped my Walt Disney colony down to a bare skeleton. This was not a small colony! How this tiny thing managed to destroy this in one day is beyond me. I have have one branch that I can frag to save it. I had set a fish trap for it. I would watch on camera during the day as it swam in and grazed so I had great hopes of catching it this weekend but had planned to be sitting on the fish room floor all weekend, watching for my opportunity. Then last night as the lights were going out, I went into the fish room and saw it near a colony it had not yet touched. I tapped on the glass but it didn't flee. I did it again and then realized that it was sleeping and quickly got the ladder and netted him before he had a chance to wake up. Probably from a food induced coma from the amount of coral it ate in one day! Pure luck netting a super fast fish, that size, in a 300 gallon full of rock and coral. I have learned a very hard expensive lesson, as Tanne stated above. I have been very depressed watching this little fish decimate a 300 gallon tank of coral. While others may not see the damage, recovery will take a while.
I'm done with butterflies (will keep my Copperband) and Angels. Remains to be seen whether i have to pull the Regal.

 

[JMM744]

If I have a coral I don’t care about or something that’s become invasive it goes into the butterfly tank. They will,either go after it hard or just browse and pick , pick, pick. Put a green sinularia that was big in and it hardly opens up anymore and you can see where something is slowly picking along the edges. Oranges mushroom with several babies went in the other day. Pakistan ate one of the babies right away. As of now the parent is there and one baby left. Several frags of mystic sunset went in and so far they are still intact. Pulled my kliens two nights ago to do aptasia duty in my sump. Once cleaned up it will probably go back to the 180 if I can catch it.

 

[Arlo]

I have started to keep butterflyfish in my tank and I'm very excited to see how they are now eating:

 

[JMM744]

Beautiful Fish Arlo ! Believe me, it won’t be long and they will meet you at the waters surface begging for food. Couple of those are unique to me, gotta look them up. I miss my Saddleback!

 

[Shredded]

I have started to keep butterflyfish in my tank and I'm very excited to see how they are now eating:

How is the Larvatus doing? I see he is picking. Is he eating enough?

 

[Arlo]

How is the Larvatus doing? I see he is picking. Is he eating enough?

Bad news. They died because of ich and bacterial infection, and the only survivors right now are my saddleback and rafflesi butterfly.

 

[Shredded]

That's too bad. I'm sorry to hear that. That was a nice looking Larvatus. Good size and eating. The only butterfly that I left in my reef is the Copperband. Today I discovered that he is eating the Aiptasia in my tank. I wasn't infested but I had noticed that once I saw the first one little colonies had been popping up. I noticed today for some reason that they didn't seem to be as fully extended as usual and sure enough, I sat and watched for a while and the Copperband attacked a group of them. So at least one good thing did come out of my butterfly experiment.