Greg Hiller
New member
First of all, no flames please.
The fish I have is not rare at all on the reef, in fact they are EXTREMELY common. In the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea area I saw one or more hovering over just about every Acropora head I came across. They are however VERY rare to find in a reef tank, or any marine aquaria. Reason...they very rarely will eat anything but coral polyps. The photo below was taken in my frag tank in my basement while the fish was in quarantine (he was very thin when I received him). He had already fattened up some, and he is now positively rotund now in my main SPS display tank.
While in my frag tank I tried multiple foods, and the fish did try some flake food, but always spit it back out.
Years ago I had the same species of fish in a tank without Acropora, and I got VERY lucky and was able to convert the fish to flake food. Let me emphasize....I was VERY lucky, in 90% of the cases the fish will not survive without a diet of coral polyps. The one that I had adapt to flake food lived for 1 year until it jumped, but showed no signs of ill health on the flake food diet (I think it ate other small pieces of frozen foods as well over time).
The fish in my main SPS tank does make most of the Acropora polyps retract, but on the natural reef diving you will notice that Acropora polyps are also only extended at night (hmmm...I wonder why?). My tank is LOADED with SPS, and the fish seems to prefer Acropora, Pocilliopora, and of the 7 or so varieties of Montipora only seems to like purple M. digitata (go figure). It's been in my main tank now for about 4 weeks. In some ways many of my Acropora look better with the polyps retracted because the polyps obscure the color of the coral, but of course with some Acropora the polyps are colored, so the fish doesn't help there. I've seen no change in growth rate, but it's only been a short time. I think the fish is small enough that it is not doing significant damage in this 110 Gallon system. Nothing seems to slime excessively.
The fish I have is not rare at all on the reef, in fact they are EXTREMELY common. In the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea area I saw one or more hovering over just about every Acropora head I came across. They are however VERY rare to find in a reef tank, or any marine aquaria. Reason...they very rarely will eat anything but coral polyps. The photo below was taken in my frag tank in my basement while the fish was in quarantine (he was very thin when I received him). He had already fattened up some, and he is now positively rotund now in my main SPS display tank.
While in my frag tank I tried multiple foods, and the fish did try some flake food, but always spit it back out.
Years ago I had the same species of fish in a tank without Acropora, and I got VERY lucky and was able to convert the fish to flake food. Let me emphasize....I was VERY lucky, in 90% of the cases the fish will not survive without a diet of coral polyps. The one that I had adapt to flake food lived for 1 year until it jumped, but showed no signs of ill health on the flake food diet (I think it ate other small pieces of frozen foods as well over time).
The fish in my main SPS tank does make most of the Acropora polyps retract, but on the natural reef diving you will notice that Acropora polyps are also only extended at night (hmmm...I wonder why?). My tank is LOADED with SPS, and the fish seems to prefer Acropora, Pocilliopora, and of the 7 or so varieties of Montipora only seems to like purple M. digitata (go figure). It's been in my main tank now for about 4 weeks. In some ways many of my Acropora look better with the polyps retracted because the polyps obscure the color of the coral, but of course with some Acropora the polyps are colored, so the fish doesn't help there. I've seen no change in growth rate, but it's only been a short time. I think the fish is small enough that it is not doing significant damage in this 110 Gallon system. Nothing seems to slime excessively.
