The Butterfly Lover's Thread

[Fishfreak2009]

I received my Longnose butterflyfish from TSM yesterday morning He's very small, at about 2.5-3 inches. I hope he gets along with my much bigger CBB.

Those both look like really nice, fat, healthy butterflies!

 

[AustiniteReefer]

Those both look like really nice, fat, healthy butterflies!

Thank you! They're both piggies and eat like crazy!

 

[OrionN]

My pair is doing great

 

[Fishfreak2009]

I did lose my Pakistani. No idea why. Looked fine, stopped eating and found it dead within 48 hrs. Necropsy showed nothing out of the ordinary, no aggression from other fish, no signs of disease. Died after roughly 25 days in captivity.

I'll try again at some point, but will probably go with a different supplier. My pearlscale, ulietensis, and Heniochus varius are all doing great! Still begging for food all day, eating like pigs, and cruising around the tank.

I went looking for more butterflies tonight at the one LFS that is closer to me. Unfortunately they only had a longnose and a copperband, and neither would eat or looked particularly great. Holding off on a copperband until I find a perfect fish. I did find a few nice wrasses and some really nice captive bred seahorses though!

 

[i cant think]

Love my flavissimus.

 

[Fishfreak2009]

Well, I threw in some pieces of 3 different caulerpa varieties tonight. Going to see if any survive the lemonpeel angel and the 2 longspine urchins. Caulerpa racemosa, Caulerpa taxifolia, and Caulerpa peltata.

Also moved all the snails, hermits, the tiger pistol shrimp, the 3 brittle stars, and the 2 longspine urchins into the 100 gallon with the butterflies today, along with a few different Discosoma and Rhodactis mushrooms. They've done some nipping (mostly the ulietensis), but haven't outright eaten them. They actually seem to prefer going after the Nassarius snails moreso than the mushroom corals. This Friday I'm picking up a huge GSP rock, a few different varieties of zoas and Palys, some more Discosoma and Rhodactis mushrooms, a toadstool leather, a couple different Montiporas, and a Stylophora to try out from about 5 local reefers all interested in this experiment. I have a large (6"x6") Stylococcinella colony I've been growing out in my wife's evo on a frag rack that I may try as well.

 

[Costareefer]

My pair is doing great

I have a convict too with my butterflies and he seems to hang out with it. I don’t sense any aggression. Does your convict stick around your cbbs?

 

[OrionN]

I have my CBB and the Convict tang in a 40 gal breeder, which is my QT system. There is no aggression but the Convict is really active and often zoom really fast the length of the tank. This is disruptive to the CBB. I need to move all three to the DT soon. Maybe this weekend.

 

[Fishfreak2009]

Well, today was the big day to add corals! My local reef group (Southeast Michigan Reef) all came through and hooked me up with a TON of freebies to fill this tank with, so that the butterflies hopefully don't completely wipe out any particular coral. I added a couple mushrooms, a tiny turquoise polyp staghorn Acropora frag, and a Stylococcinella colony. Everything else (GSP, TONS of about 6 types of Palythoa, some more mushrooms, a green Sarcophyton, a couple small rose BTAs, TONS of different Monti caps, a couple different Monti digitatas, and some Pavona) all came from local reefers who wanted to help with this experiment.

So far, they've mostly nipped at damaged tissue (from transport) on the Monti caps and digitata, a little nipping at the Stylococcinella, but nothing crazy on any of them. They haven't touched anything else. Can't see any visible damage. They actually seem much more interested in the microfauna, worms, pods, etc that came off the corals. The Heniochus almost immediately ate both Aiptasia that I was able to see on the frags, picked them out from between the palys without even making the palys close up.

Shot a quick video, most of the corals aren't really opened up yet, but so far so good! You can see the Heniochus varius nipping at the red digitata colony in the video, but it's actually nipping at the skeleton covered in detritus, not at the healthy tissue at all.

 

[Fishfreak2009]

If anyone is curious about the butterflies and corals, most of the Monti cap bleached overnight the first night/2nd day, but some is doing ok. They nip at the spots that bleached, but leave the healthy tissue alone. They ate 1/4 of the Stylococcinella the second day, but haven't touched it since (and again the part they ate is the part that bleached). Haven't touched any palys, some of the smaller shrooms went missing but I think I can see them on the bottom in the back, they just detached. Didn't touch the leather, GSP, or bubbletip anemones. They ate almost all the red digitata, but won't touch the green, like actively avoid it. However the green looks fantastic, while about 80% of the red bleached overnight the first night/2nd day, so pretty sure they were eating the damaged polyps. They don't touch the hollywood stunner chalice or the pipe organ coral either. And surprisingly, they haven't touched either small (3/4") staghorn Acropora frag.

Basically they only ate stuff that bleached out, and I've since turned the lights down. Didn't think about them being closer to the surface since this tank is taller than the 75 gallon that was in the same spot, and accidentally blasted the monti caps, Stylococcinella, and the digitatas with close to 1000 par...

 

[Fishfreak2009]

Added some more palys today, and added a 2 headed frogspawn frag from a local reefer.

So far, they've completely ignored it. Same local reefer wants to hook me up with a Hippopus clam to try out.

 

[Salty_Taste]

What is better than 1 Copperband? Pair of Copperbands!

 

[steveschuerger]

My new CBB. Came in today

 

[Fishfreak2009]

@Viking_Reefing you should definitely post your butterflies in here.

Picked up a really nice little citrinellus butterfly last night, and talked with one of my local stores that direct imports (Detroit Reef Club) about special ordering me a couple different butterflies to cut out the extra steps in the supply chain. He's going to order them for me and should receive them in the next 3 weeks or so, depending on when the divers are able to collect them!

Looking to attempt 2 obligate corallivores again, this time I'm trying:
Chaetodon trifascialis
Chaetodon meyeri

At some point I want to try a Chaetodon baronessa/triangulum again.

 

[Fishfreak2009]

Here are a few pics from this evening. A lot of the fish aren't out as the wrasses usually go to bed an hour or so before lights out. I did end up removing all remaining corals as the butterflies began eating everything, even the Palythoa, GSP, and shrooms. I'm hoping to add 3-5 more butterflies to this system, which will finish the livestock for here.

Butterflies in here include:
Chaetodon citrinellus
Chaetodon xanthurus
Chaetodon ulietensis
Heniochus varius

 

[i cant think]

Here are a few pics from this evening. A lot of the fish aren't out as the wrasses usually go to bed an hour or so before lights out. I did end up removing all remaining corals as the butterflies began eating everything, even the Palythoa, GSP, and shrooms. I'm hoping to add 3-5 more butterflies to this system, which will finish the livestock for here.

Butterflies in here include:
Chaetodon citrinellus
Chaetodon xanthurus
Chaetodon ulietensis
Heniochus varius

What butterflies do you want to add?

 

[Fishfreak2009]

What butterflies do you want to add?

Chaetodon meyeri
Chaetodon trifasciatus
Chaetodon baronessa/triangulum

Possibly 1 or 2 others

 

[OrionN]

My male this AM

Saw this guy at a LFS today. I wanted him badly

 

[OrionN]

Female today. Tail almost completely healed
I added the wrong picture and have to edited it.

 

[Fishfreak2009]

On 7/8/24 I noticed the scales looked slightly off on the right Flank of the citrinellus butterfly, so I immediately yanked it and moved it to quarantine. It is currently by itself with formalin dosed at 0.9mL/10 gallons once daily, since cupramine is also in there at 0.55mg/L (this fish brought ich and velvet into the display, which is also being treated with copper and thankfully everyone is doing well).

By 7/9/24 the lesion was much larger, but had not broken open. This is classic presentation of Uronema on butterflies, just a few scales out of place, which then becomes a giant open sore in just a couple days, then the fish dies. The other fish become infected when they pick at the sore or the dead body. This picture was taken that day. I talked with the veterinarian I work with, and we decided to try injecting Metronidazole directly into the lesion that evening. The fish was instantly more active, brighter, and eating almost twice as much within 24 hrs.

The injection was repeated 48 hrs later (7/11/24), and the lesion has pretty much completely disappeared. Appetite is back to 100%, scale discoloration and displacement is gone, and fish seems none the worse for wear. I'm going to continue to monitor in quarantine for a few weeks, then hopefully move back to the display once everyone has done 30+ days of quarantine.

Here's a photo I snapped tonight.

And in other news, a local friend of mine who is also interested in obligate corallivores decided to give violetaquarium.com a try, and received pretty nice looking fish. So I decided to give them a try as well, since they had some fish I've been searching for locally for a while and either could not find, or were ridiculously overpriced here. Setting my 75 gallon quarantine back up tomorrow to be ready for them all when they arrive! Hopefully I get them all, especially the butterflies eating well on prepared diets.