butterflies in reefs

I am a huge believer in fish traps as the ultimate backup plan. I'm like 8 and 0 :D
 
BAD NEWS:mad: My threadfin thought my hammer was Mcdonalds. The coral fell the other day and one of the heads got damaged. He zeroed in on the slightly damaged head. After he picked the damage head clean he kept going back for seconds, thirds, fourth helpings on the undamaged heads.He kept pecking at it over a few days. After it seemed like he wasnt going to stop I removed the coral for now, hopefully in the future I can put it back....
 
im glad to see everyone is trying bufferflies in reefs.

but do know that threadfins, pebbled butterflies etc are not generally considered reef safe. so i hope pre meditation and planning was put into this before taking the plunge! and if going with these species, EXPECT coral damage.

on another note, peter especially, i have another extremely stunning hybrid butterfly photo (not mine) that will hit the news soon. it's the first ever documented hybrid to my knowledge and it's just, oh my god.
 
im glad to see everyone is trying bufferflies in reefs.

but do know that threadfins, pebbled butterflies etc are not generally considered reef safe. so i hope pre meditation and planning was put into this before taking the plunge! and if going with these species, EXPECT coral damage.

on another note, peter especially, i have another extremely stunning hybrid butterfly photo (not mine) that will hit the news soon. it's the first ever documented hybrid to my knowledge and it's just, oh my god.

Thanks for the info LemonLemon! I take what you and SDGuy say as gospel when it comes to butterflies! I know you guys have butterflies in your reefs that are stated as not reef safe so its hard to judge what would be good or not. From your post though I will not try the Pebble. It is sitting in a quarantine tank for a local tank maintenance company so finding a suitable home for it should be no problem. Thanks for the input!
 
Lemon a friend want to dive a chaetodon marleyi out for me (it will be my first red list fish )
how do you think it will do with corals ?
 
but do know that threadfins, pebbled butterflies etc are not generally considered reef safe. so i hope pre meditation and planning was put into this before taking the plunge! and if going with these species, EXPECT coral damage.

He finally developed some interest in the aptasia in the tank, but mostly the smaller ones. He had been a model citizen up until that point, but then again I'm talking only frogspawn. I am mostly FOWLR, but like to venture into corals from time to time. I had a few more corals but lost them to a nitrate spike<my fault for waiting so long to replace bulb in cheato tank> I do have a few mushrooms that he has shown zero interest. Before the piece fell he had absolutely no interest, which kinda stinks..But thats life. How are the pearlscale or saddleback in a reef setting?
 
yuri - C. marleyi? I've no experience in that. it's very rare but i'm guessing that it will be similar in care to C. robustus. Should be not really safe as with many other chaetodons but if you are willing to try, you could. but remove it if it starts eating your corals.

cougaran - pearlscale butterflyfishes are not considered reef safe but there are some people here keeping them in reef tanks with no problems so fare. i myself have a pair of paucifasciatus butterflies that do not eat my corals. saddlebacks are not safe as with the account from peter, but they seem to be selective in the corals they eat.

charley - CBB and longnose are by far the safest with almost 100% safeness. ALMOST. if i had to choose, i'd go with the longnose.
 
I agree with the yellow longnose butterfly option. They have so much to offer: stunning yellow color, eyespot, classic reef fish shape, including a beautiful dorsal fin, hardy, great eaters, and practically speaking one of the most reef safe butterflies.
 


ok peter, wanna take a guess what hybrid butterflyfish this is? ;)

a picture before it's full write up is published.

it appeared in a japanese LFS
 
Hey what do you guys think about a long nose butterflyfish in a 40G Breeder, Dimensions 36Lx18Wx16H... I really got my heart set on either him or a CBB. Tell me what you guys think.

Thanks a lot,

Charley
 
Non at the moment. I've bought almost all the equipment gotta finish the stand and do the plumbing this week.

This is after the aquarium is well established by the way. And I won't mind trading him in after I've had him for a little while once he gets too big.

Also according to this calculator. A 40 Gallon Breeder is actually 45 gallons...

http://www.angelfish.net/tankvolcalc.php
 
I've been watching this thread for a while now and you've all really given me the butterfly bug! :lmao:

I currently have a 6x2x2 sps reef (not many atm mind you) and am thinking of adding a single Chaetodon ephippium and then possibly a pair/small group of Chaetodon semilarvatus. Has there been any random sucess storys with these two species in reefs? And is there any sps they're less likely to touch?
 
1 for 2. I just put my falcula and saddleback into my DT from 6 weeks of quarantine. It took the falcula about 20 minutes to go after the corals. I have 5 soft corals and he went after 3, including the green star polyps and the toadstool green polyps. The saddleback ignored them so far. I fed both heavily before the transfer from QT to DT but I guess it wasn't enough.

I will see whether it continues to be a problem tomorrow, but I guess I have no reason to expect it to get better. With my luck, the falcula will teach the saddleback to eat the corals also.
 
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