Butterfly fish from live aqaria (not divers den)

[jjk_reef00]

I'm thinking about ordering some butterfly fish from live aqaria (not divers den).
I want to buy 4 at the same time and qt all of them in a 150 (5x2x2) gallon tank together. I can separate with egg crate if necessary. These will go into my 300 FOLWR (currently empty).

I'm considering from these but will probably get the bottom 4 and exclude the raccoon:

Raccoon Butterflyfish (Chaetodon lunula)
Latticed Butterflyfish (Chaetodon rafflesi)
Pelewensis Butterflyfish (Chaetodon pelewensis)
Saddleback Butterflyfish (Chaetodon ephippium)
Auriga Butterflyfish (Chaetodon auriga)

I've kept angels for many years and am experienced with qt and getting fish to eat.

My questions:
1.) Will this mix work or will they kill each other off?
2.) Can I qt all of these together? Will they fight, will it be hard to get certain ones to eat?
3.) What are the chances all fish will make it out of qt alive? If it were divers den fish I would say 99% chance. I've only ordered non divers den once but I'm concern the fish may come in not eating, damaged, etc...
4.) Is it better to get the large or small specimens? Angels are good to get small and grow them out but I've heard butterfly fish should be bought in the 4-5" range.
Any comments are well appreciated.

Future tank mates will include a corez angel (in qt right now), an asfur angel, and possibly a puffer or trigger.

 

[snorvich]

That group is one of the easier type butterfly fish. If you are experienced you can probably pull it off. Have a variety of foods including blackworms and various kinds of frozen including Nutramar Ova. However, it is generally much easier and more prone to success if you do one fish at a time.

 

[Dr Colliebreath]

I have a falcula and saddleback together in a 37 QT and they are both doing very well. I also had a longnose that died almost immediately (it was from Hawaii and didn't appear injured, but it only lasted a couple of days and didn't eat so it obviously came in sick). The saddleback was looking for food in the acclimation bucket, and the falcula started looking for food as soon as it went into the QT. They both ate pellets from the outset.

I think it will work for you if you get good fish, and there is no way to tell that until you get them in your tank and see how they eat. LA gives you a 14 day guarantee, and you should have a high rate of success if they get through 14 days and are eating.

I haven't had any problems with mine fighting.

Is your QT cycled already? It sounds like it is given you have a fish there already, but if it isn't, that may be difficult to manage as you would have to do very large water changes and the butterflies won't tolerate poor water quality. Even if it is cycled with one fish, you will have to watch water parameters closely as the bio filter may be insufficient for 4 fish.

Be very careful medicating. My falcula went on a 7 day hunger strike a few days after I put low levels of Cupramine in the QT (prophylactic only as I didn't see any signs of parasites). Neither fish seemed to react negatively to PraziPro (also prophylactic).

I prefer medium size butterfly fish (2 1/2 - 3 1/2"). They seem established enough to settle in and adapt to your tank. I worry that larger fish are more set in their ways and what they eat and may find it harder to adapt to tank life.

Their mouths are small, so I use the very small NLS pellets and small pieces of frozen food.

The Pelewensis sounds like it may be difficult to get eating.

Please keep us informed on how it goes.

 

[jjk_reef00]

QT is cycled, and I'm going to add live rock initially make sure they eat for at least a week before I start medicating them. I've learned the hard way that you need to fatten fish up before medicating and start medication slow.

 

[geaux xman]

I had 2 4" pyramid BF's from LA that died at the same time after about 7 days in QT. I had a PBT in the QT too. The BF's ate like pigs from day 1 and i was shocked to come home from work to see them dead. This was 2 days after the initial .25ppm cupramine dose.

 

[jjk_reef00]

On Wed LA said they had a Chaetodon falcula which is the fish I really wanted, so I made an order which was delivered yesterday.
Raccoon Butterflyfish
Auriga Butterfly
Dot Dash Butterflyfish
Mertensii Butterflyfish
Black Back Butterflyfish
Falcula Butterflyfish

Well they didn't send the Falcula....
So I have 5 butterfly fish in my 150 gallon qt.

So upon arrival everything looks to be in good shape except the Dot Dash has a bruise by it's mouth. It is the only fish that isn't grazing on live rock although at times it is active.

The Black Back Butterflyfish is much smaller than I was hoping, He is about 2" and I'm concern that he is going to be very difficult to feed. I did see him grazing on the live rock and he did pick at some macro algae in my qt.

The raccoon didn't eat yesterday but today he was chowing down on the nori I put in the tank last night.

The Auriga Butterfly eats pellets and has sampled just about everything I've put into the tank (meaty food, clam on the half shell, pellets, nori, flake). Active and is constantly grazing. It is cool to watch himself stick his entire head into a hole in the live rock to check for food.

Then there is the Mertensii Butterflyfish...
This guy eats aggressively and eats several different meaty foods and also picks at pellets. He is the most aggressive out of the bunch and was chasing some of the others so I moved him into his own 10 gallon glass tank this afternoon. The chasing wasn't really bad but my qt has limited hiding places and I don't want the distractions while trying to get the other fish eating. As soon as I put him into the glass qt he started attacking his reflection. He settled down after about 20 minutes and is eagerly eating again.

Here is is:

Some of the others:

 

[geaux xman]

will you be doing any prophylactic treatments?

 

[jjk_reef00]

Definitely prazzi, and I really want to use cupramine but I'm a little worried after reading about how sensitive they are. I'm thinking about getting them established in the 150 and then transferring them one by one into a smaller tank for either copper or hypo so I can directly monitor their feeding habits. The problem with that is that is defeats the purpose of introducing them all into the display at the same time.
I saw the Dot Dash and Black Back twitch a little this afternoon so I did a freshwater dip on each. No flukes fell off which might be a bad sign because flukes are easily treated. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Hanami]

That group is one of the easier type butterfly fish. If you are experienced you can probably pull it off. Have a variety of foods including blackworms and various kinds of frozen including Nutramar Ova. However, it is generally much easier and more prone to success if you do one fish at a time.

What's blackworms, Pls. you post some pics
Thanks you.

 

[Dr Colliebreath]

What's blackworms, Pls. you post some pics
Thanks you.

Hanami,

Here is a picture of blackworms:

http://aqualandpetsplus.com/Live Food, Blackworms.htm

 

[Dr Colliebreath]

jjk,

Nice selection of fish. Too bad on the falcula. Perhaps they didn't have one that they thought was worth selling when they filled your order so they left it out rather than shipping you something substandard.

Hopefully, the raccoon will start eating more. Sounds like you will have to work a bit on the black back and dot dash. Maybe try blackworms or mussel or even live brine shrimp. I go to my lfs and ask for the smallest possible portion of blackworms for $1.

You may be able to bring the Mertensii back after the others settle in.

Good luck and keep posting your progress.

 

[Big E]

I don't think blackworms or Nutramar are necessary unless the fish aren't eating or you want to use them as supplemental foods. You need to get them eating heavier foods like shrimp, scallops, clams,mussels which is 95% of what I feed butterflies that have lived for years.

I'd also opt for frozen foods with more bulk like Formula Frozen foods.

 

[geaux xman]

Definitely prazzi, and I really want to use cupramine but I'm a little worried after reading about how sensitive they are. I'm thinking about getting them established in the 150 and then transferring them one by one into a smaller tank for either copper or hypo so I can directly monitor their feeding habits. The problem with that is that is defeats the purpose of introducing them all into the display at the same time.
I saw the Dot Dash and Black Back twitch a little this afternoon so I did a freshwater dip on each. No flukes fell off which might be a bad sign because flukes are easily treated. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

i had a pair of 4" pyramid butterflys that died overnight a couple of months ago. the two ate like horses for a week. it was under .25ppm cupramine of its 3rd day. i had another tang in the tank that didnt die, so the only thing i can pinpoint it to is the copper. pretty mysterious death. they were from LA.

not to scare you, but just sharing my experience. i've read some state on here they've never had a problem with BF's and copper, so i dont know..

i certainly wouldnt do anything more than .30ppm though.

G'luck with the BF's.

 

[kybreos]

If you dont want to risk the copper, which i wouldnt in your instance i would just use Hypo salinity. Slowly lower your salinity in the QT,the fish actually find it easier to breath i believe with lower salinity if they are infected with parasites.

 

[jjk_reef00]

Thanks for the info guys. I've tried hypo before but I'm not real good with keeping the ph high. The orange shoulder tang that was in hypo did fine but I'm concern about how fragile these butterflies can be.

 

[Lynnmw1208]

Those are really beautiful fish! I would just use the prazi treatment imo. I never use copper on any fish unless I see signs of ich. Good luck with the fish! Is LA going to send the one they didn't eventually?

 

[jjk_reef00]

LA just adjusted my bill accordingly and charged my credit card the reduced amount, they even gave me the free shipping I think Dr Colliebreath is correct about them not wanting to ship something substandard. I've had LA do this with SPS before. I've seen the Auriga, Mertensii, and Black Back twitch at least two times each today so I'm going to add more live rock (from my 300 display which is in hypo right now) and start hypo tomorrow. The Mertensii will go back into the 150 and I will separate him with egg crate if necessary. I suspect it is ich because the Black Back was dipped in fresh water yesterday and there were no signs of flukes and there was no film on the water.

My LFS didn't have Ova so I bought H20 Oyster eggs. I spread it on a piece of live rock and the Auriga came right over and started picking. Some fell off the rock into the water column and the Dot Dash started feeding!! While all this was happening I got some PE mysis crumbled it really small at put it into the tank. I was amazed the Dot Dash kept feeding. Two hours later I tried the mysis again and he eagerly ate it. He would only eat it in the top 3/4 of the tank and the pieces had to be very very small. If I could easily see the piece of food in the tank he wouldn't eat it (too big?). I'm talking pinhead size. I'm going to feed like this 3-4 times a day and hope it is enough to keep him happy. I didn't see the Black Back eat yet but he was picking something off of the intake of the canister filter.

 

[Dr Colliebreath]

Good that the dot dash is eating given the bruise.

Maybe you can separate the black back off with eggcrate so it doesn't have to compete for food, and of course use very, very small pieces of food.

Is the raccoon eating more than nori yet?

 

[jjk_reef00]

The raccoon picked at a few different things but doesn't seem very interested. He did eat all the nori I left out again and he has a good amount of weight so I'm not real worried. The dot dash is eating but the pieces have to be very very small. He swims around and eats floating eggs and ground up mysis out of the water column for about 10 minutes at a time. I saw the black back eat some of the eggs or mysis, and he also is picking at the red algae I took out of my fuge. To me it seems like these fish should be fed 5-6 times a day and I'm a little concern that 3 feedings is enough. They eat so little at each feeding because they will not eat large pieces of food. I do have pellets on an auto feeder which feeds one time while I'm at work.

I've seen the black back clean the raccoon on two different occasions now. He swims up takes 2 or 3 pecks at the side of the raccoon and it was very cool to watch. I've had 1-2" angels before with larger fish and have never witnessed them cleaning before.

The Mertensii is back in the 150 and shows a little aggression but it isn't bad. I added more live rock so each fish has their own hiding spot which helps a lot at night.

The fish are still twitching from time to time so I'm lowering the salinity over the next 4-5 days to hypo the fish. Any recommendations for hypo of sensitive fish would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Big E]

They eat so little at each feeding because they will not eat large pieces of food.

Once they get acclimated they will rip large pieces to shreds. You'd be suprised how big of chunks they can take down. Like I said.............get them eating raw seafood. Freeze it & chop it up. Even after its chopped up & thawed in water you can smash up the chunks with your fingers to make smaller pieces.

They can handle heavy feeding once a day, but if you can twice a day is fine. I do two within about 2-3 hours of each other.