Which Butterfly for my mixed reef?

[ourmanflint]

Hi all

been debating for a while and looking for a final couple of show fish for my 100 gallon mixed reef, and have decided on a pair of Butterflies. I can get quite a lot nearby as I live near a large importer, the choice has been whittled down to these.

C. fremblii, kleinii, rafflesi, ulitensis, tinkeri, miliaris, citrinellus or mertensii

Now I know none of these save the miliaris are really reef safe, and as my tank contains a few clams, SPS, LPS, zoos, polyps and NPS I am taking a risk. It comes down to how much damage they can cause and how much I can tolerate before I want to get them out. I can live with polyps being withdrawn during the day on the SPS and the occasional nip at clams and zoos etc. but serial plundering of my stock will not make me very happy.

Any thoughts and experiences especially positive ones would be of great help.

Cheers

 

[ourmanflint]

Just me and the tumbleweed eh?

 

[jd474]

C. ulietensis has been best for me. use them in 2 different mixed reef tanks with no issues. i've also tried the kleins and mertensii with little luck -- just destroyed most lps corals. maybe someone else had better luck, though.

 

[jubjub]

i read pyramid butterflies are pretty reefsafe... as well as copperbands......

and i think Heniochus Black & White Butterflyfish ......but those are the tricky ones there's one that is reefsafe and one species that isnt and look almost identical....ugh

 

[Chihuahua6]

Yellow Pyramids!!!!!!!

 

[Elysia]

My vote would be for the miliaris. No one seems to keep these, despite their plantivore eating habits.

 

[AuroraDrvr]

The C. miliaris and C. tinkeri are probably your best two options. Just depends how much you want to invest in a pair of butterflies.

 

[Jordani]

LiveAquaria has a pair and a single specimen of tinker's butterflyfish right now on DD.

 

[ourmanflint]

Great.. unfortunately the miliaris seem to be unwanted so never really appear in most shops over here and the only tinkeri I have ever seen is £300 ($500), and I'm not sure that my system without a chiller in the summer would be good for it being a more deepwater species. C. ulietensis sounds like it might be a good one as well as it's lookalike C. falcula

 

[OneArmedBandit]

I have a c. miliaris in my mixed reef and it is a model citizen. I keep softies and LPS though no SPS. I really like this fish, I've only seen it at an LFS once and that's when I picked it up. Kind of nice to have a very inexpensive fish that seems more "rare" than some of the very expensive fish out there. -Steve

 

[Stanley-Reefer]

All of mine are well fed and still do exploratory nipping...