Prognathodes marcellae & Johnrandallia nigrirostris

[chipchip]

Hi all

did anyone ever keep Prognathodes marcellae & Johnrandallia nigrirostris? I just saw them on my stocklist from DeJong and I ever wanted a butterfly. This two species will not eat SPS I think.

The Johnrandallia nigrirostris is like a cleaner and a friend of mine does keep catsharks. They just ate his cleaner wrasse and he thought maybe one or two of these butterflys would be a nice try.

We just want some information before he orders.

 

[chipchip]

just found a very nice video of this guy..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tW0L6f_0w70&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Did anybody ever saw this one in person or kept him in a tank?

 

[chipchip]

Nobody?

 

[Whiterabbitrage]

The video you posted was great. That is a beautiful fish! I've never seen either one of these for sale. Tried to research but didn't find much. The P. marcellae eats " benthic inverts" and is usually found in pairs. The J. Nigrirostris eats a variety of things and is a known cleaner according to this site:

http://www.iucnredlist.org/details/165633/0

If your friend gets one or both I hope you post what they are like. I'm very curious about these fish.

 

[zebrasoma17]

Neither of these fish is commonly available in the USA. A friend of mine used to own a LFS and he used to get eastern Pacific shipments in the early 1980's. The barberfish adapted easily to aquarium life. No feeding issues. If I remember correctly the shipments were from Costa Rica. Shipments from the East Atlantic are infrequent here and I don't recall ever seeing the Marcella Butterfly offered for sale locally in over 35 years of marine fishkeeping..

 

[chipchip]

Thanks for your response.. I will order 1 P. marcellae or maybe a pair. I will let you know how they do. The cleaner butterfly is really cool but my friend is not sure to get some.

 

[chipchip]

Unfortunately I did not receive my marcellae butterfly.. But I've orderer a rosy butterfly now..

They still have those mexican barberfish available.. did anyone kept them in th past and can give me some information about them?

Thats how they clean: http://www.wingswildlife.com/video_clips/PS05_029

 

[jjk_reef00]

I had one a while back, great fish very active. Annoyed some other fish by cleaning.
Ate well but died for no reason after about 1.5 years. Mine was much more silver than the pic you posted.
Kind of like a big silver dollar swinning in my FOWLR tank, so not sure about SPS.

 

[SDguy]

I love their pattern, but as Ed said, they are MUCH more silver looking in person. They don't look like a "tropical marine" fish, IMO.