Orange spotted filefish! What corals are safe with it???

[luceym]

Hi Everyone I just want to ask to anyone keeping this fish or having experience with it. I have had one in the past and loved it, I weaned him off but sadly he found my only coral in the tank which was an acupora coral. He polished it off and then after a few weeks my aquarium got ick! Ending him as well.... it has been a few months now and I am looking to get another. However... I have added a lot more corals since then but all of them are blandos, zoanthids and lps. No sps anymore! Will these be ok? Or are they known to eat other corals which aren't of the small polyp variety, ill put some pics of some of my corals, thanks!!

 

[vetteguy53081]

Mostly SPS
THEY will nip on virtually anything soft

 

[luceym]

Mostly SPS
THEY will nip on virtually anything soft

So my corals aren't safe with them then...

 

[vetteguy53081]

So my corals aren't safe with them then...

By nature, they feed on live corals as first choice and they generally dont stick to one coral but rather go coral to coral and nip.
There are a handful of persons over the years that were able to get them to feed on frozen/live food combo and not bother certain corals but I call this a risk

 

[Rtaylor]

They actually don’t eat coral. They eat the mucus from the polyps of acropora millepora coral. An aggressive osff could kill a small acro frag, but a well fed one won’t damage any coral at all even if it pecks at it. I currently have 5 in a mixed reef tank. They will peck at stuff but cause zero damage.
Having had a fair amount of success with these fish I would consider the following prerequisites/ necessary commitments for keeping them:

1. Masstick must be offered daily
2. Panta Rhei Sponge & Panta Rhei polyp pellets must be offered daily
3. A wide variety of frozen food must be offered and at least 1 daily feeding of frozen food is provided
4. An auto feeder is setup to ensure a minimum of 3 pellet feedings daily (a variety of small pellets mixed, chromaboost, pe mysis, formula 1 & formula 2, etc. )

Including the auto feeding, the fish should be fed a minimum of 4X daily and ideally at least 6X daily. Masstick should also be offered daily.

Here are some pics of mine.

 

[Uncle99]

So my corals aren't safe with them then...

Not safe
Such a shame.

 

[Rtaylor]

Not safe
Such a shame.

Disagree. Further research has shown that they don’t eat coral polyps, but the mucus from the polyps. Unless an osff is starving and aggressively trying to feed on an inadequate supply of acros it typically won’t damage any coral. Masstick is a game changer for training these fish to eat prepared foods and Panta Rhei has designed pellets specifically for coralivores that they quickly take to as well. Once they learn to look away from coral for food they are voracious eaters of virtually anything that will fit in their tiny little tube mouths.

 

[Deadlocked]

They actually don’t eat coral. They eat the mucus from the polyps of acropora millepora coral. An aggressive osff could kill a small acro frag, but a well fed one won’t damage any coral at all even if it pecks at it. I currently have 5 in a mixed reef tank. They will peck at stuff but cause zero damage.
Having had a fair amount of success with these fish I would consider the following prerequisites/ necessary commitments for keeping them:

1. Masstick must be offered daily
2. Panta Rhei Sponge & Panta Rhei polyp pellets must be offered daily
3. A wide variety of frozen food must be offered and at least 1 daily feeding of frozen food is provided
4. An auto feeder is setup to ensure a minimum of 3 pellet feedings daily (a variety of small pellets mixed, chromaboost, pe mysis, formula 1 & formula 2, etc. )

Including the auto feeding, the fish should be fed a minimum of 4X daily and ideally at least 6X daily. Masstick should also be offered daily.

Here are some pics of mine.

Beautiful fish and tank.. those frog spawns

 

[Borat]

Just feed them new corals daily..

 

[damsels are not mean]

I think we need to differentiate between a fish which "nips at" and a fish which "devours or damages" corals. The harlequin filefish as stated above is actually reef safe, unless you don't really have a reef and just a collection of frags. There are also tons of butterflyfish that are either obligate corallivores or will nip coral polyps, but that won't kill a healthy and large acro colony if the tank is adequately sized and densely forested.

"Reef safe" is really a sliding scale. Acropora crabs for example don't eat coral, but they will kill frags if that's all there is in the tank. There are animals that are obviously not reef safe at all, like the crown of thorns starfish or certain species of nudibranchs, urchins, parrotfish, etc.

 

[luceym]

Just feed them new corals daily..

Yes cause I roll around in money!

 

[Borat]

Hi Everyone I just want to ask to anyone keeping this fish or having experience with it. I have had one in the past and loved it, I weaned him off but sadly he found my only coral in the tank which was an acupora coral. He polished it off and then after a few weeks my aquarium got ick! Ending him as well.... it has been a few months now and I am looking to get another. However... I have added a lot more corals since then but all of them are blandos, zoanthids and lps. No sps anymore! Will these be ok? Or are they known to eat other corals which aren't of the small polyp variety, ill put some pics of some of my corals, thanks!!

With the way you laid-out all your prized corals - filefish probably thinks it's food offering...

 

[Rtaylor]

Mostly SPS
THEY will nip on virtually anything soft

Where did you get this info? If anything they will peck at sps and generally completely ignore all other coral. If you don’t have sps there is almost no risk to coral from an osff. If the fish has taken to prepared foods the risk even for sps is small. They don’t naturally harm their source of food. Only if starving and having nothing but coral frags to eat would it be likely to damage the coral. This would be caused by trying to eat the mucus off of coral polyps where the coral has no polyp extension due to the filefish pecking at it. If it’s starving, it will keep pecking anyway which will damage the coral tissue eventually killing the coral.

 

[jdiefenbaugh]

Kept mine with oxypora, fungia, and some montipora sp. They would irritate some of the montipora, but I'd agree with everything Rtaylor has said. Sorry for such a crappy pic, I had these in 2011 or 2012.

 

[miyags]

They are a hard fish to keep,and should only be kept if you are willing to put the time and extra money feeding them properly. Sadly most of these fish die because of our wants and their beauty.

 

[MaxTremors]

Not trying to gaitkeep, but I think if you’re calling corals ‘acuporas’ and ‘blandos’, you’re probably not experienced enough to attempt to keep this fish.

 

[Rtaylor]

They are a hard fish to keep,and should only be kept if you are willing to put the time and extra money feeding them properly. Sadly most of these fish die because of our wants and their beauty.

Agree they have specific feeding requirements that must be met, especially initially. Once they’ve taken to prepared food, really the only special requirements are that generous portions of very tiny sized food is provided frequently. I would say a minimum of 4 times per day. If you are someone who limits food input for nutrient concern reasons, find another kind of fish.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Where did you get this info? If anything they will peck at sps and generally completely ignore all other coral. If you don’t have sps there is almost no risk to coral from an osff. If the fish has taken to prepared foods the risk even for sps is small. They don’t naturally harm their source of food. Only if starving and having nothing but coral frags to eat would it be likely to damage the coral. This would be caused by trying to eat the mucus off of coral polyps where the coral has no polyp extension due to the filefish pecking at it. If it’s starving, it will keep pecking anyway which will damage the coral tissue eventually killing the coral.

From experience and I used to carry them at my pet store until I realized what they were doing
They are well known to thrive in live coral and spa is stony making it less attractive to pick on however with their small mouth, they will go after anything with polyps or feeders

 

[Rtaylor]

From experience and I used to carry them at my pet store until I realized what they were doing
They are well known to thrive in live coral and spa is stony making it less attractive to pick on however with their small mouth, they will go after anything with polyps or feeders

In the wild they eat almost exclusively the mucus from acropora millepora polyps. This is why their mouths are essentially a tiny straw. They will definitely peck at sps. They don’t naturally see lps or softies as food. Maybe if they are starving they might give it a go, but typically they completely ignore them.

 

[vetteguy53081]

In the wild they eat almost exclusively the mucus from acropora millepora polyps. This is why their mouths are essentially a tiny straw. They will definitely peck at sps. They don’t naturally see lps or softies as food. Maybe if they are starving they might give it a go, but typically they completely ignore them.

This is not the wild we are talking about and in a closed system, they are more apt to pecking on anything that provides a food source which in many cases is why they end up starving
Literally these and cow fish should not be sold in captivity due to lack of proper food source
I don’t think anyone is going to invest in SPS long term to provide a happy home for food source for any given fish
Over 3.5 decades in hobby and ive seen these two species die more than any other specimen