[Delphinus]

My CBB took a few months to develop a taste for aiptasia but once he did, he was an aiptasia's worst nightmare. I could hold a rock in my hand from another tank and within 2 minutes he'd have cleaned the aiptasia off it. He would not touch, however, majano anemones nor much of anything else. He never developed a taste for much of anything else, except mysis. I had to feed mysis daily because of him, once in a while I'd throw in a mussel or manilla clam or whatever to give him some variety. He lasted nearly 3 years before I lost him and if it wasn't for all the horror stories out there about them only lasting 2-3 weeks lately I'd be all gung ho to one day try another.

I have a raccoon butterfly now and while he has decimated the majano's, he is not touching aiptasia. He is, however, trimming the tentacles off brown polyps. You think purple polyps are annoying? Try brown button polyps. Unkillable and nobody wants a rock with them because they're brown. But at least the raccoon is going after them or at least annoying them somewhat.

But I've noticed my zoanthids are starting to recede. Not too surprising. But for now I'm ok with it because I'd rather de-majano my rock, they were totally out of hand.

The other thing is that the raccoon is more accepting to other foods. I've seen him chase after flake, now I still don't know if he is EATING the flake yet, but showing an interest is already 100% more action I ever got out of the CBB. The CBB .. the only things that were "food" to him were aiptasia, grocery store clams (he never once took out a tridacnid, although there were times he showed interest in new clams so I'd have to cover them with a jar the first night) and mysis. I tried and tried and tried to introduce other foods but they just weren't food to him. He'd even spit it out if he ate some by accident (I would mix stuff with mysis in an effort to "train" him onto other foods). He was far more stubborn than I, so I gave up since it's easy enough to dump in mysis.

The raccoon has so far not shown a LOT of interest in my clams, but I am worried about it. I have seen him sample the little bumpy raised things on the mantles of my croceas, so I have to admit it's a cause for concern.