butterflies in reefs

HiImSean said:
lol love the sponge bob and pineapple
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Thanks, my girls picked them out. I have the Krusty Krab and even Squidwards house:wildone: The funny thing is my blenny LOVES them, uses each one to hang out in and the KK to sleep in at night.

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Has anyone kept a golden semilarvatus in their reef. I saw somewhere they are fairly reef safe and wanted some confirmation. I mentioned getting a butterfly at the LFS and the poor salesgirl almost fainted. She did follow that up by saying she is very cuatious in her tank, and thinks all butterflies are a risk.

I pointed out the yellow pyamid listed as reef safe on LA, and she was surprised, but said if LA says it is safe it is a good bet that it is, lol. I had her put my on the special request list at the stor to try and get one, and she said they have had them in the past.
 
bamf25 said:
Has anyone kept a golden semilarvatus in their reef. I saw somewhere they are fairly reef safe and wanted some confirmation. I mentioned getting a butterfly at the LFS and the poor salesgirl almost fainted. She did follow that up by saying she is very cuatious in her tank, and thinks all butterflies are a risk.

I pointed out the yellow pyamid listed as reef safe on LA, and she was surprised, but said if LA says it is safe it is a good bet that it is, lol. I had her put my on the special request list at the stor to try and get one, and she said they have had them in the past.
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The semilarvatus generally are considered to be high risk/not reef safe. You can find a few success stories (probably very well fed individuals) but most find them to be a problem.
 
Just a funny video of my YLN BF, he has been doing this for the past few days, for several minutes at a time. Catching a ride it seems lol

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Thanks everyone for a wonderful thread on butterflies. I just found you and took a couple hours to read it all. I'm building a large tank which won't be ready for 6 months and would like to try some of the more difficult butterflies. I will be dosing the tank with brine shrimp which as a side effect grow lots of aptasia. Do you think most butterflies will relish aptasia?
 
They will eat all the aptasia in a few days no problem. I'm going to grow aptasia in my fuge and feed it to them as a treat every now and then.
 
LOL nice video. A LFS to me had a longnose that would swim in circles for 10 minutes then swim normal for a while and then do it again. Was the strangest thing.
 
clowndude said:
LOL nice video. A LFS to me had a longnose that would swim in circles for 10 minutes then swim normal for a while and then do it again. Was the strangest thing.
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This sounds like steriotypic behavior. In some animals it can be a sing of stress or almost an OCD like behavior, it is not healthy. Healthy animals in captivity should be exibiting normal wild type behavior in a smaller setting. Occasional playing in a waterjet is fine, repeated pacing nonstop or circling nonstop is not healthy. I do not have a specific "fish" OCD, but I kinda equate it to horses kept in stalls. Stressed horses will pace the front of the stall continuously, or do something called cribbing where they constantly chew on the wood of their stall door. This is not wanted behavior.
 
jjk_reef00 said:
They will eat all the aptasia in a few days no problem. I'm going to grow aptasia in my fuge and feed it to them as a treat every now and then.
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It sounds like we have the same plan. A necklace of PVC fittings or doughnut shaped rocks on a rope collects aptasia until feeding the butterflies. I was hoping that screening the 1500 gallon fuge into several parts could allow sustainable growth but if they graze anems faster than I can grow it this is just wishful thinking. I would like to get lots of aptasia by dosing a couple million BBS a day for the shoaling fish. If the fuge growth can't keep up the rock ropes would be a backup plan.

Seperate question, I'm also building a brine shrimp refugium and have never seen a fish that doesn't eat them. Could difficult butterflies live on steady diet of anems and BS? I could gut load the BS but don't think I need to with naturally grown animals. I think of pink store bought BS as starving eye candy whereas natural BS grown with good oxygenation are light brown or green, and very nutritious.

Thanks in advance.
 
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have gotten a new member for the tank :)

it's a very small 2 inch guenther's butterflyfish.

Chaetodon guentheri.

he will be ready to join the display tank soon.
 
Dave, as far as the Brine goes its not all that nutritious. Newly hatched baby brine is great cause they still have the yolk sack attached. Other than that gut loading them with phyto is the way to go.
 
aquaph8 said:
Dave, as far as the Brine goes its not all that nutritious. Newly hatched baby brine is great cause they still have the yolk sack attached. Other than that gut loading them with phyto is the way to go.
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I don't disagree with your point. But homegrown healthy shrimp are more nutritious (depending on their diet) than the starved animals at the LFS. LFS shrimp were grown for two weeks on yeast and are like skinny teenagers. Fully mature adults are past the growth spurt and accumulate fats, especially females that produce up to 75 babies per day. Real adults are twice the length of LFS shrimp and much heavier.

I have a thread on brine shrimp refugiums and detritus recycling in another forum. And I could be wrong on the nutritional difference between LFS and homegrown shrimp.

But assuming we provide lots of shrimp and aptasia (I almost wrote "pasta", it's way past my lunchtime) the question is: "could we keep the more difficult butterflies on such a diet?" I'm guardedly optimistic, even polyp eaters go wild on zooplankton. If they eat it, nutrition is nutrition. Cows naturally eat grass but they still grow on the protein pellet stuff we give them at the feed lots. I think it may be possible that a large system fed by BBS could grow sufficient anemones. Besides, why let a filefish clean the fuge if something much prettier can do it? ;)

I've never seen Ornates or Meyer's "in action" and I could be wrong on their appetite for shrimp and anems. Perhaps they will turn up their nostrums. Would other butterfly keepers take a guess whether this is worth a try?
 
I dont dissagree with that, your probably right about homegrown vs. LFS. My only question is: If your gonna grow them and feed them, why not gut load them?
 
Glad to see we're on the same page. You're absolutely right, after growing them for a month it would be silly not to gut load them before feeding. So we come back to whether these two feed items in large numbers will let us keep more butterflies. I don't have an answer.

Maybe the best tactic is to work our way down the list one by one toward butterflies with the most corals in their diet. More likely I will impulsively buy whatever the LFS has new.
 
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