Apatasia

[Reef Pilot]

Originally Posted by Skimmer King

Well its over gowing my tank and cant get peppermint shrimp in. tried a Tilefish works amazing but loves acans and zoo's
I have a chance to get a longnose butterfly may try this out YES I KNOW BUTTERFLY FISH

Don't know about the longnose, but I have had Pearlscale Butterfly fish for about 4 years now, and they totally cleaned up my aiptasia problem (all rock and back of tank was covered with them, probably many 100's, maybe >1000). It took them several months, but have kept the tank clean ever since. I still see them from time to time in the overflow and sump, but not in my display tanks. You can read more about that in my journal link at the bottom.

And they leave my corals alone. Have SPS, LPS and softies. The trick is to feed them well (they eat all kinds of frozen and dry foods, unlike some butterflys). And train them first in your QT tank to eat the fish food, where you would also first introduce a few aiptasia rocks to get them going on those, too.

But whatever, do not first put them into your community display tank before training them on other foods. There they would most likely go after corals first instead of the regular fish food. Also, they usually come with some diseases, so you will want to do the prazi and hypo routine to be absolutely safe.

They are a nice looking fish too (not like those ugly filefish), and not aggressive to other fishes. They might take an initial beating from a yellow tang, but they are pretty quick and should be OK after the tang gets tired of trying to corner them.

[reefwars]

berghia nudibranchs , its all they eat but there are some things to do if you want it to work for you

i bred them all summer and watched them destroy hundreds of aiptasia with no harm to anything else

plus you can sell or trade them afterwards