Aiptasia "Eating..." Filefish - Don't do it!

[Brooklands]

I just wanted to let everyone know my story based on first-hand experience and from what've I've heard from other reefers. Please comment if you want.

I had a fairly nice (see image) 80 gallon reef that I started 3 years ago. Everything was doing well, but I had a proliferation of aiptasia, probably several hundred or so, that were bothersome to the shorter corals and stalks of some corals. I only had one fish, a blue damsel, so I decided to get a small aiptasia eating filefish. His name was Henry.

Upon acclimation to the tank he did very well. He mostly hung out where the pods were in the back, spending numerous hours eating my live pods and mysis. Which was ok because I had thousands. Never saw him eat an aiptasia, ever. A few months in I noticed that overnight all of the aiptasia were gone one day - never saw him eat one, ever. I did however notice him eating my hammer and acans. The tank was starting to look tired at this point already and I had a feeling for a few weeks that something was off but my parameters were perfect. An important thing to note is that I have a 20 gallon sump on this tank and all, ALL, of the aiptasia also disappeared from the sump. I thought that was interesting.

I thought my first step should be to revert back to where I was and take the filefish back to the store. I did this. Over the next few months however, the damsel and every lps and sps in the tank slowly perished, along with all of the kenya trees and sinularia. Parameters were checked weekly at three different sources, all said my water was habitable.... everything continued to die.

Finally I broke down the tank and started over with my sand and rock scrubbed clean. I also had my RO and tank water tested via gas chromatography mass spectrometry - there were no none pollutants, only minerals that I used to supplement the corals. Keep in mind that the water was tested down to the parts per billion. Even some of the different types of algae I had died. Like the hard corkscrew algae.

Fast forward a few months, leathers are now growing again, but I still cannot keep a pod, a hard coral, or a fish alive in the tank. I've tried 5 different species of fish, all perish in 2 days like clockwork. Water is continually being tested and is within near perfect parameters.

Also, I'm using RO water and I do a 5 percent water change weekly.

It is my honest opinion that file fish do eat aiptasia but also, because of their habit of eating toxic polyps and anemone, they release a toxin into the water from their gut that will leach into your rock and sandbed having a potentially lasting affect on your tank. It may be that this toxin kills some of the aiptasia... Obviously not every filefish has the same diet, but it's not worth the risk. (Oh and I even replaced all of the equipment, because I didn't want to take the chance of a small amount of electricity leaking from a fixture being the culprit, but that had no affect.) Everything you see below, which is a pic of the left side of the tank, died.

 

[Flippers4pups]

What type of File fish was it?

 

[Pistondog]

My file fish was iffy, worked in the 1st tank, not so much in the 2nd
But more zoas/softies in 2nd, and better fed.

 

[Brooklands]

Acreichthys tomentosus. Greenish colored variant.

 

[HockeyRooster]

Mine is in the overflow for bad behaviour. And he didn’t eat aptasia

 

[cthedaytrader]

My filefish was awesome at killing aiptasia, problem was he also ate every zoa, favia, acan and maybe chalice. Couldn’t keep any zoas or lps with him. Never harmed other fish or sps. Not sure about the toxicity of the fish. I do know some leathers especially sinularia can be toxic, especially to sps. Not sure about them killing fish. You could try running carbon if you aren’t already.

 

[jeffchapok]

I was finding 3 or 4 new aiptasia per week, so I added a filefish. I haven't seen a single aiptasia since. And it's been probably 5 months.

However, once they were all gone he also ate all my rock flower nems. But he hasn't bothered anything else.

My long spine urchin is a different story...

 

[reefer65]

I was finding 3 or 4 new aiptasia per week, so I added a filefish. I haven't seen a single aiptasia since. And it's been probably 5 months.

However, once they were all gone he also ate all my rock flower nems. But he hasn't bothered anything else.

My long spine urchin is a different story...

Something is eating my euphyllia in the tank. There are large chunks out of the skeleton. It has to be either my long spin urchin or the file fish. I have actually seen the file fish eating my zoas. Of course I can’t catch him either.

 

[vaguelyreeflike]

Edit: Don’t know how I ended up on such an old post, sorry for the random replies years later! Disregard haha.



Since your leathers are pretty much the only thing doing well, and you can’t keep hard corals alive, Id sooner say the filefish stressed out the leather coral and caused this.

I would run fresh activated carbon and change it out every 3-5 days (depending on absorbency lifespan of the brand), and do some large 50% waterchanges if possible.

Many species of Sinularia are known to release toxins, that most commonly kill hard corals, but I can imagine it would take out fish too if it released enough of it. The system also receives only small waterchanges, and I’m unsure if you run carbon normally.

If it was the filefish releasing toxins from eating aiptasia, this would be a very common issue with these fish, but I have never heard of this happening from adding filefish before.

I experienced something similar in a 100gal system however (80 in displays and 20 in sump), but it was from a pufferfish eating all of the polyps off of a large cabbage leather and my hard corals, anemones, and many of my softies were stressed out and dying randomly within 12hrs. Fish seemed unaffected for the most part, but a few were stressed out and I couldn’t figure out why at the time.

I ran carbon and did a few 50% WC, removed the puffer, and within a few days everything began to recover and I had no loss of fish, just hard corals, and my anemones seemed stunted after. They didn’t grow or split much compared to how they used to until I moved them to a separate system for a few months. I’ve also stocked many aiptasia eating filefish into this system over time, and only the puffer eating the leathers caused any problems.

Another key point is if it was toxins from the aiptasia, the other aiptasia should have been immune to some degree to it, and the leathers should have perished instead with the other softies and hard corals that you lost. I don’t think it was the filefish who released the toxin, but most likely what caused it.

Also, when leathers get all their polyps eaten they just look stressed and retracted, so it can be hard to tell if you didn’t witness the munching. I didnt realize that was the cause until i noticed it had 1 or 2 surviving polyps open, and it was simply missing the rest but no other visible damage.

 

[vaguelyreeflike]

It would also make sense for the filefish to be unaffected/less effected by the toxins released, as they’re evolved to eat toxic corals like that and be in the area while its releasing it, much like many puffer species and anything else that loves to eat soft corals/nems.

 

[VintageReefer]

Yea. My filefish ate no aptasia for months. Then over the course of a week or two he ate hundreds. Then he ate my zoas, any kind of torch or hammer also. He passed for unknown reasons and while I did like him I wouldn’t get one again.

 

[KC2020]

I've kept a few different kinds of filefish over the last 30 years and they do love to eat corals, Aiptasia not so much. They sure are cool looking fish, just not reef friendly in my experience.

 

[dstew03]

I'll never have another one in my tanks. Added one to take care of a few aphasia, plus they just look cool. Within a week he was going to my zoas, duncans, and one of my blastos like it was an all you can eat buffet at Golden Coral. I couldn't figure out what was going on since it happened seemingly overnight (after the aiptasia were gone). All my levels were exactly where they've been since my tank cycled. Finally spotted him nipping on them. Thankfully my LFS likes to do trades since they're local. Rehomed him, and within hours everything started opening back up once they figured out they were no longer being terrorized

 

[HawkeyeDJ]

I had an aiptasia problem in my 24g AIO. Tried all kinds of remedies before getting a filefish. He eliminated the aiptasia in the DT almost overnight. Then he ate my rock flower anemone. Then he killed virtually every snail in the tank. Then he killed my beautiful yellow submarine favia. Hasn't touched the GSP or the green leather or red mushrooms. He eats frozen mysis and loves spirulina tablets.

 

[Twitch PhD.]

Rather confusing. Why recommend an aiptasia eating filefish without providing an explaination of their potential problem? I am 8 months into a new nano tank with different corals and fish and a tank that has had no problem until now with the aiptasia anenome. Weather permitting (huge snowstorm here in CO Rockies) I am to add 1 or 2 aiptasia filefish today after researching and coming to the conclusion that I could not get rid of or keep the Aiptasia Anenome from harming or even killing my tank.
Suggestions...
Recommendations ...

 

[VintageReefer]

Rather confusing. Why recommend an aiptasia eating filefish without providing an explaination of their potential problem? I am 8 months into a new nano tank with different corals and fish and a tank that has had no problem until now with the aiptasia anenome. Weather permitting (huge snowstorm here in CO Rockies) I am to add 1 or 2 aiptasia filefish today after researching and coming to the conclusion that I could not get rid of or keep the Aiptasia Anenome from harming or even killing my tank.
Suggestions...
Recommendations ...

How many aiptasia do you have 2? 200? Estimate is fine

 

[Bohemian Waxwing]

I've honestly kind of given up on counting on any kind of "aptasia eating" creatures in my tank. I just bite the bullet and dedicate 20 mins once in a while to nuking them with F Aptasia.

Just need to try a more economical solution, but it works well enough for me. It helps that my wife enjoys point them out everytime one pops up, makes my eye twitch...

 

[Twitch PhD.]

How many aiptasia do you have 2? 200? Estimate is fine

A handful.

 

[DanP-SD]

I’ve used them to eradicate aiptasias successfully and then removed them. They’re individuals so each one will behave a bit differently but in my experience, it’s highly likely that, after settling in, they’ll take care of the nems. Then it’s highly likely they start eating corals. That’s when I’ve removed them. The good news is they seem pretty easy to catch using a bubble trap. Just keep it in the tank a couple days and feed only in the trap.

 

[areefer01]

Rather confusing. Why recommend an aiptasia eating filefish without providing an explaination of their potential problem?

Fellow hobbyist do try to share their experiences when recommending fish, corals, or other things. They will also say in my opinion, experience, etc.

The challenge is that all systems are different as are the animals we keep. What works for one may work for another with a slight variation such as nipping at a coral. Environment plays a pretty large role in all of this.

Matted filefish (Acreichthys tomentosus) is typically recommended by many around the web as a slow, methodical, aiptasia eating machine. I would recommend them for this very reason. However, I would also add that some corals may be at risk such as Xenia or corals that look similar. I would also say fleshy, LPS frags such as a frogspawn may be at risk also. Frags, not colonies. Colonies can withstand the nips, frags or pieces cannot. In my experience.

The crux of the problem is that we can't interview the animal before we introduce it. Not trying to be a wise acre but it really comes down to that sort of deal. We can't ask, we don't really know, we only have fellow hobbyist experiences and history. And with that being said the Matted Filefish (Acreichthys tomentosus) is one recommended animal. Peppermint shrimp (they have their own baggage), berghia nudibranch (expensive), Copperband Butterfly, and so on.

One last thing which is a bit of a challenge for todays age or with new reefers. The onus is always on the hobbyist to have a "what is acceptable" clause in stocking their display. If I add the Matted Filefish what is, or is not acceptable. If by chance eating Xenia is not acceptable to me then I don't introduce the fish due to said risk.

You get the idea and I'll pass the soapbox.