Pairing butterfly fish

[Jacob D]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15341410#post15341410 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by SDguy
Thanks for the kind words. I know, I admit I'm kind of boring with my fish in the sense that I love the common ones. But they are beautiful to me nonetheless.

My current pride and joy (not to be paired, since they get so big)

Beautiful saddleback. How is pairing going with the others?


My semilarvatus are now in my display tank after spending 8 weeks together in QT. In the QT (55g) the slightly smaller fish wanted to buddy up w/ the larger who would instead go on the attack.

When I moved them into my DT I moved over the smaller b/fly and a couple of wrasses and left the larger more aggressive fish by itself in the QT. A few days later I moved it in w/ the others and he immediately paired up with the smaller fish. They are getting along good (so far). They are still young fish so I hesitate to call them a pair but they are together ~ 80% of the time right now, so maybe we can call them friends instead

I haven't spent much time trying to get a good picture so here is a quick snapshot...

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/30740619@N08/3733714890/" title="2009-07_1843 640x800 by Dinardi Family, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3432/3733714890_f3d7772a5c.jpg" width="500" height="400" alt="2009-07_1843 640x800" style="border:2px solid #000;"/></a>


I've got some corals in the QT again; when those are getting ready to come out I'm going to be looking for a Declivis to keep these guys company along with Naso Blonde and Desjardini tangs (one each). Having a single QT has been a good lesson in patience

 

[SDguy]

Very nice fish there!

I unfortunately lost one of the pearlscales I came home to find it hiding in the rocks with what appeared to be a popped blood vessel in its eye. It didn't last the night.

 

[Jacob D]

Sorry to hear about your pearlscale.

 

[SDguy]

Thanks. I guess it will make the pairing process more interesting....

 

["Umm fish?"]

I had a trio of plebius juveniles together, but they eventually killed the third. So, now two. They are still young and haven't grown into the blue spot yet. They seem to be doing fine and eating everything, though.

 

[Big E]

Sorry to hear that Peter

Andy, can you snap a pic............I'd love to see those Plebius.

 

[SDguy]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15381341#post15381341 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by "Umm, fish?"
I had a trio of plebius juveniles together, but they eventually killed the third. So, now two. They are still young and haven't grown into the blue spot yet. They seem to be doing fine and eating everything, though.

A local was selling a long established adult pair of aurigas. He said they formed the pair in the same way. He started with three, and the two killed the third.

 

["Umm fish?"]

Yeah, I can see that with aurigas. Plebius are supposed to be mild enough to be kept in groups. I guess not.

I don't have a very recent picture as I really need to clean up their tank and I'm going crazy trying to raise some seahorse babies. But here's an older one:

 

[Big E]

Very nice Andy................how long have you had them?

 

["Umm fish?"]

I think it's been since around April.

 

[Jacob D]

Those little guys are cool. I know a guy who had a few Plebius in his 240 for about 2 years. They always stayed together. Might have just been luck of the draw with yours taking out the 3rd wheel?

 

["Umm fish?"]

Maybe. It may be that they have no tankmates to curb the within-species aggression.

 

["Umm fish?"]

Here's a shot from tonight. Sorry the glass is so gross. You can see that one is getting the blue spot. They are still awfully small.

 

[SDguy]

OK, so I'm trying this again. Fresh start

I have a 20g QT with just the basics. Light, powerhead, heater, and hangon filter. A little bit of liverock for biological filtration as well.

There was a large selection of yellow longnose butterflies, so I decided to try those. Previous experiences with this fish have been poor, with respect to pairing. So the first thing I did was net a somewhat larger specimen from the group of "smalls" and add it to a large holding container. Then there were maybe two or three other candidates in the "small" group that I would consider (looking/acting normally, no injuries, etc.) Each one that I tried to place in the same conatiner as the first was immediately attacked by the first. You'd think aggression would take a back seat to the stress of being netted and moved around. Nope.

Finally, I tried a new approach. I took one of the best looking ones from the group of "mediums", and added one of the three small ones to the conatiner with it. No go; the big one attacked the smaller one. Switched out the small one with another. They circled each other a couple times, and that was it. No problem. So, whether it's just a size issue, a sex issue, or both, I can't say. I took these two home with me.

They were of course bagged separately. After acclimation, separately, I aded the larger one to the QT first. I added the smaller one next. Again, checked each other out for a moment, and then proceeded to follow each other while picking for food in the live rock. I'm thinking this is great.

I add some food, and there is definitely some aggression from the larger fish while eating. I was worried, but a friend of mine that had a true, collected pair of butterflies before said that he too observed this aggression during feeding. It was not severe at all, just a little "back off" stance here and there. Otherwise they get along well. Time will tell...

 

[mrwilson]

Wow, shows how just picking any two at random from the LFS would have virtually no shot at success. Hope this works out for you - it would be very cool if it does. These are very underrated fish, in my opinion - really interesting shape and nice color.

 

[SDguy]

Thank you. I agree, very cool fish. I especially love that dorsal fin!

Well, they both eat like pigs, and now show zero aggression to each other while eating. In fact, they will both bite at the same piece of food at the same time, and not even flare a fin. Hopefully things progress well.

 

[Big E]

It was nice for you to be able to see how they initially would get along at the LFS. Good luck with them.

I'm not sold on size meaning anything. It never matter when I paired them, but I always used a group of fish & let them pair on their own.

 

[AquaKnight]

SD, not sure I missed it, but interested to know what happened to the Saddleback?

 

[SDguy]

SD, not sure I missed it, but interested to know what happened to the Saddleback?

Velvet, or the subsequent copper treatment, or both, took out the saddleback, a yellow longnose, the other pearlscale, and even my stunning multicolor angel. That was the worst part.:sad2:

 

[SDguy]

The YLNs are doing well. The smaller one obviously has a bit of a harder time eating, since it requires TINY foods. Mini mysis work well, but finely minced scallop from the grocery store has been the best to fatten them both up (probably because it is pure "meat" - no prickly heads, legs, etc. ). I saw a little bit of ich, however, so I removed the cleaner shrimp, and began very low dose cupramine. As I mentioned, I've had pretty bad luck with copper and BF before, but then again, that was when trying to battle velvet.