how big a reef to maintain butterfly

[homegrowncichli]

I've picked up 3 small butterflies, about 1" in size, Chaetodon striatus (banded) and Chaetodon sedentarius (reef) while snokaling here in chilly New York. Currenty training them on to a frozen blend of food in observation tank and they are doing fine. Of course they only eat a tiny amount of food and seem to subsist even on my algae coated live rocks.

I was wondering how big does a reef need to be, before one adds a butterfly to it where the corals aren't bothered by their feeding/picking? I've seen videos on youtube of 100 or 200 gallon tanks full of coral, angels and butterflies.

I have a 65 gallon tank, fully stocked with SPS and LPS with corals that vary in size from 2" frags to 6" diameter SPS birdsnest and 8" diameter frogspawn/hammers. Also have pavona coral covering a square foot of surface area on the back and a square foot of palyzoas/zooanthids.

Given the scale of my tank, would 1 or 3 butterflies coexisit in there?
Since they are so young, and probably never tasted coral before, if I can convert them onto prepared foods, and keep them well fed, would that also help?

A picture is worth a thousand words. Its as if they are going into an ocean.

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[dave.m]

It is great that you have learned the scientific names of your fish. Now you can Google them to find out how big they will get and what they prefer to eat. Chaetodon sedentarius grows to ~6", while Chaetodon striatus grows to ~6.5". Neither is an obligate corallivore, but C striatus will definitely nip at them.

To have enough space to house coral eating fish and supply them enough coral would take a couple of thousand gallons aquarium (think of how much room they have in the ocean).

If you are getting fish in the 6" range you will need something no less than 200-300 gallons (preferably larger). I think I would not try sps corals with them but stick to gorgonians and a few lps from the Caribbean.

Dave.M

 

[homegrowncichli]

Thanks for the info, but let me clarify, I'm not trying to measure how much acreage of grass is needed to feed a sheep. On the contrary, my question is more like, How much corals in biomass does one need so that the butterfly's impact is negligible.

As for growth and size, I'll have to worry about that after they all adapt to prepared foods, at which point I'm hoping they will like to eat it so much, they won't bother with corals. If I can't convert them over, I'm not going to release them into the reef anyway, since they may die out.

I found a link showing obligate coral eating butterflies eating prepared foods. Their success was based on the fact that they caught very small juveniles like I did. The following is a synopsis and I'm hoping to reproduce their results AND introduce them into a reef.

Tiny coral eating butterflyfishes eating homemade food is a cute and encouraging spectacle
By Tea Yi Kai on Mar 01, 2012
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJMgFsMDUiY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuRCeVfOGBI
The short clip above featuring a group of tiny tiny butterflyfishes feasting on what appears to be a mixture of pellets and some form of homemade mash on a half-shell is just too awesome. The butterflyfish posse comprises of some well known “aquarium untouchables” that feed exclusively on stony coral such as Chaetodon plebius, Chaetodon trifasciatus, Chaetodon bennetti and Chaetodon speculum. Other standard issue, fairly easy aquarium suitable species such as C. ocellicaudus, C. ephippium, C. auripes and C. rafflesi also made their cameo appearance.

In case anyone was wondering, these thumbnail sized beauties are not captive bred. Instead, juveniles like these are collected from the wild where they are apparently very common in certain shallow parts of the reef. I would assume that the collection was made in Japan and it is actually pretty commonplace to find juveniles like these swimming in shallow water tide pools or harbors there.

 

[dave.m]

Notice the lack of sps corals in the tanks in your examples, e.g. acropora. Also note that juvenile fish seldom have the same appetites as adults.

Dave.M

 

[homegrowncichli]

The youtube video was to show that even the toughest butterflies to keep can be trained onto prepared foods. It doesn't provide any information about reverting back to their natural coral diet, which I assume is likely.

So then it comes back to my orginal question, but perhaps we can quantify a little better. Lets assume the aquarium would be packed with life rock from end to end. Also assume it is totally covered in coral heads. Using common glass aquarium dimentions, of 18" deep and 24 or 30" high.
How long does the aquarium need to be before adding a single small 2 to 3" butterfly?