Butterfly experience

[Barney121]

Anyone have good or bad experiences with butterflies in your reef tank? I'm looking at the more standard varieties (longnose, or copperband), and different sites say opposite things - some say they should be OK in reefs, others warn that they may eat all your stony corals. There are definitely some "bad" kinds for reefs that I'll avoid, but I wonder what kinds of problems anyone has had with them?

Thanks!
Scott

 

[rigleautomotive]

scott,the copperbands are ok,probably some what safe to corals,not fan worms and they do pick at zoos occasionally.i put them in to clean aptasias periodically and either remove them or they starve some time later when the aptasias are gone so i dont know long term.i really dont recomend them if your primary goal is to grow corals.

 

[Bill King]

Scott
I don't think you could find a better source for this type of question than Bob Fenner.
Check out Wet Web Media search engine.

Good luck
Bill

 

[bob124578]

I can't seem to make up mu mind if I like the Butterflys or the Anthias better.

I have kept many Butterflys over the years. The ONLY one's I had no problems with corals are: Copperband, Longnose and the Schooling Bannerfish (Heniochious dyphraties spelling is off I know). I have all three in a reef tank now with SPS and softies. I've never kept LPS.
I can confirm a Raccoon, Pearlscale, Pakistani and the Semilavaris (again I'm no speller-- it's the blue cheek) will eat corals. Ric's and polyps seem to go first.

Also I agree with Ridge -- the copperband will eat all tube feather duster worms.

 

[CarlC]

Scott I'm glad you brought this up. I am planning on butterflies now that I have the angels I wanted. Coral eatting isn't a concern at the moment but will be in the future.

Bob- Anthias are much better!!!!

Carl

 

[bob124578]

Carl -- I finally got them again -- Lyretails and Purple Queens

we'd LOVE to see pic's of yours...

I'll see if I can get some good pics of mine

I'll show you guys my BF's in the reef

 

[bob124578]

Pic's

Pic's

I'm always somewhat relunctant to post pics of my tanks. Because my focus is more on fish I don't clean the glass as often as you reefers. It makes for larger bug/snail populations. Anyway -- here is my 120 gal reef with the three butterfly's. The Heni is about 13" from top to tip of nose. I'm buying a house this year so I will be building a HUGE system for them as they are about too big for this tank. But I do feed the system a LOT.

My nephews named the Heni "Alphalfa" when he was wee -- but he is too big for such a cutesie name -- I see him as a powerful yet graceful sailboat -- something that would win the "America's Cup."

 

[rickyfins]

Scott,

In my experience, I have bought both large and small Copperbanded butterfly fish.

The larger fish seem more prone to problems in the reef. I have seen that more than once and in tanks other than mine.

If bought small (as small as you can find) and raise them up and teach them how to eat the proper foods they are much less likely to be problematic.

In my system that had a small CBB he would still nibble or pick at LPS occasionally, but after time I noticed that he was trying to get slime rather than actually eat the polyps or flesh.

Older ocean fish have bad habits for us. Well, not to them, they are doing what is natural for them, but if they are young and in the home aquarium you are more able to teach or persuade the fish to do what you want it to do!

 

[Barney121]

Interesting, thanks everyone. It kind of sounds like I've read elsewhere too, that it's a little hit and miss, if they learn to eat other stuff, then they're OK, if they decide they like corals, then they start hitting them to get slime. Bill, I've read WWM lots of times, thanks, couldn't find a real answer on this. I think I've decided I'll wait a bit, I've got plenty of other fish now (I keep meaning to post a thread on my new tank and life keeps getting in the way!).

 

[CarlC]

Scott one thing that has worked with the angels I have is keeping them in QT until they are eating any prepared food I give them.
The few corals I have only got picked on for the first few days and even then it wasn't to bad. I feed often though.

Carl

 

[rickyfins]

So Bob,

Have the Heni and the longnose been problematic for you at all?
If not, do they pick at anything, in addition what corals do you keep and which ones do you stay away from.

 

[bob124578]

My Heni and the Longnose are no problem at all. They are not the first of each I've had and no problems ever.

I keep them around plenty of Montipora and recently Acros. Most of the soft corals are older then they are.

BUT thinking about it I should probably qualify my statements by making it clear that my systems are fed very often -- at least three times a day -- that 120 gets about 6 cubes 3 times a day of frozen meat. These guys are meat eaters and very little food gets uneaten -- but enough to keep the rubble and rock crawling. I see them picking at the rocks for a few hours after the lights go off -- live stuff. They do best in an enviroment that crawls with gammarus, mysids, breeding snails (cerith and stomatella) and worms. The refuge attached is a 40 gal tank that pumps out many of these things. You may notice what seems to be unusually large extake tubes in the tank -- I do high flow from a huge fuge. (say it three time fast)
I have only stayed away from LPS because of a lack of interest.

The fish I mentioned that have eaten corals have done so under these same conditions -- so for example, when my Raccoon ate all of a particular mushroom type -- I knew it was a natural preference and not starvation.

Anyone keeping these large fish in a pristine heavily coral-stocked tank that is infrequently fed may experience anything. I'd probably eat a Monti or too if i was starving.

 

[bob124578]

Oh ! I recently saw some live saltwater feeder shrimp and tried them as something to hunt. The smaller ones were quickly eaten by all butterflys. They larger ones made it to the fuge!

 

[Sanjay]

Here is my butterfly in the reef.