Anyone tried different butterflies in a reef?

kaboom · #1 03-07-2008, 03:18 PM

Aside from the Copperband and Longnose, has anyone experienced other butterflies outside of the Chelmon family. Please share your experience, good/bad? I would like to tried the racoon, redsea Golden, or pakistani in an SPS dominant tank. I am aware that they may eat polyps and willing to risk it.

Delphinus · #2 03-07-2008, 05:09 PM

Unfortunately I only have first hand experience with the CBB.

I haven't been able to find much info on the longnose, other than it's supposed to be easygoing and readily accepting of prepared foods. I guess what I mean is, I haven't really found much useful info in how "safe" it is with clams specifically. (Would love to know if it's OK or not, but I really am not going to be the one to sacrifice my clams to the cause of finding out!)

Most of the fish you listed are reputed to be fairly dicey in terms of reef-safeness... I'm not sure I've heard of many instances of them in SPS tanks. Again, sorry, no first hand experience though.

One butterfly fish that is reputed to be a pretty good reef citizen is the pyramid butterfly, Hemitauricthys polylepis. IMO, that one might be worth checking into.

EmilyB · #3 03-08-2008, 06:23 AM

Had a red sea golden and I would try that again. I did, actually just get one again but it died.

The pakistani is an awesome fish, on a mission to eat coral though !

Pan · #4 03-08-2008, 07:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kaboom

Aside from the Copperband and Longnose, has anyone experienced other butterflies outside of the Chelmon family. Please share your experience, good/bad? I would like to tried the racoon, redsea Golden, or pakistani in an SPS dominant tank. I am aware that they may eat polyps and willing to risk it.

After looking into butterflies some time ago and checking massive threads on reef central...the consensus seems to be there are no "reef" safe butterflies...none...some are better than others but none are really great either.

kaboom · #5 03-08-2008, 05:01 PM

I suppose it's a given that no butterflies will be reef safe, it comes down to how tolerant one is to coral/invert distruction. The tank is 90% SPS with extremely high current on the top half of the tank, so hopefully that's a deterent for them to comfortably forage up there. I too have read many threats and aware of the risks, but, to be frank, my in tank might have a chance. I believe no two tanks are alike, so what has occurred in one may not in another.

The desire is strong enought to risk and discover if all these creatures can coexist in the same tank. I m going to have to experience it first hand. A similar delimma arised back a few years when I dreamed of having a tank with mulitple dwarf angels. I decided after tireless research to go ahead and do it. In the end I had a 75g with 6 angels in that tank, an Asfur, Majestic, Queen, flame, potter, and bicolor. All lived together for a year and a half until I sold the tank. So "going by the book" is not always the case, I take it like a grain of salt when it comes to fish husbandry.

Now the mission is to find a some healthy butterflies.