Damn matted filefish

[JaiWiz]

For anyone looking to get a matted filefish and has zoas do not get this fish it will eat your zoas quicker then you can blink. but they are great aepitasia control so just a warning i bought some beautiful zoas from red coral in edmonton the other day and the bastard in my tank definately was trying to eat them i transfered them to another tank but not sure if they are gonna make damn what a **** off

[fishoholic]

They do like corals. Mine left my zoas and sps alone but it loved my acans and frogspawn.

[Aquattro]

I've had 4 of these between 2 tanks and never had them eat anything but aptaisia. Between the tanks I have zoos, LPS and SPS and they've been perfect!

[dreef]

I have one as well..absolutely no aptaisia..he destroyed it.But i found out he luvs duncans,so they had to go. Great fish otherwise

[reefwars]

like angels they are hit or miss i had an adult who never touched any of my zoas and he had 87 different kinds to choose from plus lots of lps,sps and i had a juvie who as soon as he could he went to work nibbling on them he ate a 2 head frag of nuclear greens as soon as i put them in the tank lol little bugger!!

[ReefOcean]

I am not a big fan of the "hit or miss" theory behind animal eating habits. I think if there is not enough alternative food in the tank, or the animal hasn't been fully weened onto a certain food any animal will resort to eating anything it can digest, or fit in it's mouth.


If you take a look at most "feral" animals, they will always pick the thing they would naturally eat in the wild and have been trained to eat over something artificially introduced to the environment unless it is extremely convenient (Like laying a steak right in from of a bear) Many opportunistic hunters are trained to eat when convenient, due to food shortages but in the reef environment, I doubt this is the case for many animal where food sources are abundant. If you look at most carnivores in the reef environment, they tend to stick to predetermined prey, hence why attacks on humans are considered rare.


The biggest thing is, the animal needs to be weened onto alternative food sources prior to being placed into a system where organisms exist that might meet their nutritional requirements. I don't think "gambling" really plays a role, I think that what really determines the fishes eating habits is mainly how long it has been kept in captivity prior to you purchasing it and whether it has been fully trained to eat a certain food item over another food item. Also, that chosen food item must be readily available and easily accessible.