Is the Tahitian Butterflyfish reef safe???

Jeremy1988

New member
Hey guys...so I'm looking at some butterfly fish for my reef tank. I do not want a butterfly that will out grow my tank. I have a 90 gallon cubish tank. From my search on Live Aquaria I'm limited to only 3...the one I seem to like is this fish. I currently keep Feather dusters, LPS, softies, and SPS corals...anyone had experience with this fish. Also I only feed my fish once a day....so the theory of "A fat and happy fish wont eat my corals" may go out the window. The other fish option was a Burgess Butterfly fish, which was also cool.
 
Neither is the best candidate in my opinion, although I've never kept them. I say this because you have every kind of coral possible (soft, lps, and sps). Odds are those fish will take a liking to at least one kind and wipe them out. Your sps and lps are probably the most at risk.

You might be able to get away with a copperband, which is safer but more difficult to keep. Another suggestion is the pyramid butterfly, which is VERY coral safe, but needs a lot of swimming space.
 
I'd go with a Hawaiian yellow longnose. Easy to keep, pretty well reef safe but your feather dusters will probably be toast I would assume. It will be fine in your tank for a very long time. Blue zoo has them in stock. I got one from them a few months ago that is doing great in my 90.
 
Biggest problem is you only want to feed a Chaetodon once a day? :D

Healthy butterflys forage continually, so this kind of feeding would really encourage coral consumption... otoh don't know what that particular species prefers to eat, but guess you'd have it in your tank!

:wave:
 
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