Pairing butterfly fish

I have a pair of 5" banded butterflies Chaetodon striatus that were caught off of the coast of West Palm. They lived fine together during 6 weeks of quarantine and on diplay in a 1000 gallon tank for another 6 months. One of the two started acting very aggressive towards the other. I let it continue for about a week until I noticed damage to the butterfly. At that point the butterfly started to have a thinner body condition and minor scale loss. I built a cage and placed it in the system to seperate the two. Thinking that it might be temporary I tried to reintroduce them together but it had the same result, and therefore have moved one of them to the 400 gallon refugium. I have not seen this before in a confirmed wild pairing.
 
Interesting! Perhaps one began to not thrive, and the other sensed this, and therefore became aggressive towards it? I've seen this before...conspecifics being aggressive to sick individuals.
 
My YLN are still pretty aggressive during feeding.... unless someone has experience of what a true pair does during feeding, I doubt they are a pair at this point.
 
When I had true pairs they weren't aggressive to each other during feeding time & generally hung out together.

I've seen BF's that aren't pairs be a bit dominate but it's usually just nudging of the anal fin area & not out right attacking/chasing the other fish during feeding time.
 
Yeah, that sounds like nothing to me..........there shouldn't be fin damage either when this is done.

When they want to dominate they're just like any other fish........they'll chase it into an upper corner of the tank & keep him there.
 
Big E said:
Yeah, that sounds like nothing to me..........there shouldn't be fin damage either when this is done.

When they want to dominate they're just like any other fish........they'll chase it into an upper corner of the tank & keep him there.
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No, never any contact or damage. Nothing to the extent of causing any social or physical damage. They just don't "pal around"... unfortunately.


So, I guess this means the only way to really pair butterflies is to get several, and let them choose. That is unfortunate :(
 
So, I guess this means the only way to really pair butterflies is to get several, and let them choose. That is unfortunate
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That's pretty much how most of my successful pairings went as I mentioned in my first post in this thread. It's not really unfortunate........to me it's all part of the fun of experiencing these fish. You never know what you'll get, maybe a trio, 2 pairs, who knows. Some BF species have some unique group dynamics.

Lets face it, from strictly a numbers game you only have a 33% chance of getting a male & female. Three gives you a 50% chance & so on.
 
Big E said:
It's not really unfortunate........to me it's all part of the fun of experiencing these fish.
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While I agree it's neat, most people neither have the room for such dealings, nor the ability to find homes for the "leftovers". ;)
 
Just a quick update. Both YLN are doing great. The small one still won't take pellets though :mad:

As for the "pair" thing... well, I still have not idea. They are fine together in the tank when no food is around. Once food goes in, they can be aggressive. What's really interesting is that the small one sometimes chases the big one, and sometimes vice versa. No clue what any of it means...
 
As I mentioned, (I guess months ago), I decided not to pair up my Auriga. It's been a month since your last update SDguy.

Has the small one began to take pellets? Any new or interesting behavior (or behavior changes) in the last month or so?

~Kem
 
No change so far. The small one still doesn't take pellets, and the two will still occassionally do a quick chase....sometimes the big after the small, and sometimes vice versa. I still can't make heads or tails of it :)
 
Ynotme4886 said:
I love that way of explaining your tank....I've gotta borrow that if you dont mind.
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Thanks, but I have some bad news to report. At this point I am quickly running out of corals that they won't eat :( The blackback takes care of any branchy soft corals. The YLN take care of any worms, tubeworms, and pods. The pakistani has decided it loves discosoma mushrooms, and of course the meredithis love BTA's.
 
It's what they do, most of them anyway. But I bet you also have absolutely no aiptasia, too. Good with the bad. Most of them are definitely for fish-only tanks, though.
 
"Umm said:
It's what they do, most of them anyway. But I bet you also have absolutely no aiptasia, too. Good with the bad. Most of them are definitely for fish-only tanks, though.
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Yes, this really isn't surprising to me. I just wanted to put it out there, since I see so many threads lately asking about common Chaetodon species of butterflies in reefs, as if people have forgotten what we already learned in the past about these fish :D
 
Gotcha. :)

The tank with my plebius is still the _only_ tank in my system without aiptasia, despite all my berghia. The butterflies do a great job. They just aren't picky about taking out everything else, too. Gorgeous fish, though.
 
You can only really try to target a group that won't eat certain corals & keep it at that. For example Pakastani may not eat certain softies, so you pair them with that or those species of corals. That means no BF's that tend to eat softies can go in the same tank.

I've got a list of corals that will work with the BF's I plan to keep, but for now it's all speculation till I put everything together.
 
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