Christy's 180 build

[christyf5]

Originally Posted by fishytime

Naso's stay small for a couple...............months......I battled waffer algae too and the way I got rid of it, was a blonde......its a tough one to git rid of......hopefully your UNLS will knock it back....

LOL, yeah if I could remove one fairly easily I would definitely go for it but the thought of tearing the tank half apart to get it out after the job was done, frankly it makes me tired

Oh the other hand I'm currently looking for ideas for "natural" majano and aiptasia control, anyone had any experience with utiliensis butterflies?

[Delphinus]

Originally Posted by christyf5

anyone had any experience with utiliensis butterflies?

uh ... hi?

[christyf5]

Originally Posted by Delphinus

uh ... hi?

I know your experience I was just wondering if anyone had any bad ones

[Chowder]

Tank looks great Christy. On the PJ's what Lance said. I have 6 in my tank right now. They all seem to school or all be spread throughout the tank . I have had them for 3 years now . Two sets of 3 in two different tanks. I have had all of together in one tank since febuary. I have not seen much aggression between them. Every so often there will be a little jockying in positoin in the pack . I have never been able to tell the females from males. I did find out two weeks ago that I have atleast one male. I noticed one had a mouth full of eggs and was hanging out alone on the opposite side of the tank. Two days later I wa sworking on the tank and he released them. Was really cool to see.


Chris

[christyf5]

Oh, good to know! Thanks Lance and Chris

[Zoaelite]

Even browned out the tank is looking amazingly healthy Christy! What sort of coral is right above your lemonade? What ever it is that's some fantastic growth and color on it!

I have always wanted a PB but I have been to scared to try and my tank is a little full, grats on getting him to eat I hope he grows nice and big in your tank.

[christyf5]

Thats a pink pocilipora above the pink lemonade. I almost lost that one in 2008 but managed to resurrect it from a few tiny bits that survived. It grows like crazy and is in need of fragging as its crowding out a few other corals.

[Parker]

Originally Posted by christyf5

Oh the other hand I'm currently looking for ideas for "natural" majano and aiptasia control, anyone had any experience with utiliensis butterflies?

Tagging along. I'm tool lazy to stick my head in the tank to get to the one's down low.

[Delphinus]

Typed in a response at work but then all day never got a chance to finish it and press submit. Argh! Hate days like that.

Anyhow, the short version to what I want to say is that I have two C. ulietensis, aka Pacific double-saddle back, or false falcula butterflies. Both C. ulietensis and the similar C. falcula (aka "true falcula" - the black patches are smaller on falcula) have a reasonable reputation for being majano munchers, reasonable adaptability, and a somewhat reef safe reputation. The problem is that the flipside to "somewhat reef safe" means "somewhat not reef safe" and you'll not really know what else could be at risk in your tank until you've tried them and find out. They could be model citizens but they might end up not being able to resist certain temptations and you can't really compensate for a learned behaviour with extra feeding.

I was warned beforehand that "they eat everything" and I thought. .. well, surely not EVERYTHING. But 8 month in with them I can say it's actually darn close to everything. Softeys, stoneys (LPS and SPS), gorgonians, clams, anemones .. no category is immune. For the most part they leave most things alone but once they've decided one individual is food, that's it, it's food, and they won't leave it alone until it's gone (perished or removed). The latest thing is I've had a couple clams let go of their rock (like clams do) and the butterflies discovered that the byssal gland is pretty tasty. So the upright clams are fine but a couple in the past month did topple over and I found them too late to save.

So it's a VERY carefully measured choice. They can be pretty destructive. Which is too bad, because they are VERY nifty fish.

[christyf5]

LOL, I didn't realize yours had gotten quite so bad Tony, its been awhile since I've gotten an update from you. Guess I'm mixing up more kalk paste.