Matted filefish, surprisingly good citizen...for a mature tank.

[Sk8r]

Since the 8 day blackout and chilldown took out all my shrimp (and worms) I've had quite a resurgence of aiptasia. Got talked into this fish---and he's a keeper, I think. He'll happily stuff himself on mysis, but doesn't like flake, so if I feed the damsels (predominant type in my tank) flake, he'll go off and eat other things---like gradually nip the tentacles off the aiptasia, which are diminishing. I suspect he might do the same thing with, say, zoa eyelashes, so he might not be good for a zoa tank, but he's left acan and euphyllias alone, and seems to cruise around looking for microscopic inverts, possibly pods, if any have survived the disaster---a bad thing if you have a mandarin, which I don't at the moment. The big boss domino damsel doesn't mess with him, and he's completely unflappable.

He came in flat and is getting downright prosperous. I can't complain of his behavior and he's so weird he's cute. Kind of blends with the rocks.

I'd recommend caution with : dragonets, zoas, maybe with sps polyps, but with plain old euphyllia, he's impeccable.

 

[jason2459]

I love my matted filefish. Very interesting fish and always changing his colors to blend into different backgrounds. Mine will eat anything and really likes Nori. He is a pain in the butt when trying to hand feed my copperband as he's all into trying to get at the food. The pig of the tank. However, mine doesn't touch any aiptasia but on the plus side hasn't touched any of my corals or anemones. The only fish that he gets annoyed by is my bi-color angel. The angel will peck at filefish's little tassels and the filefish gets mad at that.

 

[Dkuhlmann]

Ya I love mine too, Oh and mine has a blue tassel on his head. The dorsal fin got caught in the net and I had to cut it out, this was during acclimation. Great fish though.

 

[Spartanman22]

I got mine recently to try and eradicate some aiptasia. So far no luck, but he has taken a liking to my wellso

 

[jbvdhp]

I heard they're hit n miss and that's why I opted not to get one. Hit n miss with aiptasia and hit n miss with being reef safe. I'm glad it's working for you.

To my disbelief pep shrimp are working on my aiptasia, even large ones!!! Usually at night.

 

[Sk8r]

Pep shrimp are my usual answer and in the last 15 years I've never had them fail. I just lost mine in the power-out and haven't been able to get any. The MFF would eat them, if I got them, however.

 

[Spork3245]

I debated on getting one a couple of months back due to an aiptasia problem that was on going for nearly a year. I was worried it would go after my LPS Duncan, Blasto and Octospawn once the aiptasia was gone, so I decided to go with berghia nudibranches instead. Glad yours is a model citizen in your tank though!

 

[droth335]

We have had a bonded pair for several months and they are also good citizens. Have decimated the aptasia problem. Only issue is they seem to have thinned out the eagle eye zoas (never caught them in the act but the only suspects in the tank) which doesn't bother me as I am not a big zoa fan. I also think they are a cool addition - aside from their contribution in aptasia elimination.