Aiptasia eating filefish owners: do yours nip at corals?

[Mike N]

I have an ongoing aiptasia problem and was strongly considering adding a filefish to help out.
According to most fish retailers, they do nip at corals. However, when asking for personal experience from other reefers, they say theirs was well behaved.
What about yours?
Would be helpful if you included the types of corals in your tank.

 

[bsn_rn_cen]

Following along out of curiosity. I dont have aiptasia but think they are cool little fish.

 

[Hemmdog]

Get nudibraches. I haven’t tried a filefish personally but I’ve seen many threads on here of them nipping coral.

 

[Mical]

Both pairs of mine in two separate tanks are "model citizens". I bought ORA filefish from Live Aquaria. The catch is, they don't pick at aiptasia right away. Mine took almost two weeks before I noticed aiptasia was gone. From ORA -"they eat at night and are shy".

 

[JasReef]

They are great at clearing aptasia for me and only seem to bug micromussa lordhowensis. I have acros, gorgs, favias, chalice, nems, clam, coralamorphs, torch corals and other euphylia and the lords are the only thing they bothered.

 

[Mike N]

Get nudibraches. I haven’t tried a filefish personally but I’ve seen many threads on here of them nipping coral.

I've introduced about 25 Berghia nudibranches to the tank over the last six months or so. They're very very slow, and don't seem to last too long.
I would assume they will work well in a tank that doesn't have an outbreak level population like my 40b.

 

[Pdash]

I have an ongoing aiptasia problem and was strongly considering adding a filefish to help out.
According to most fish retailers, they do nip at corals. However, when asking for personal experience from other reefers, they say theirs was well behaved.
What about yours?
Would be helpful if you included the types of corals in your tank.

In polls like this you should include a "just show results" option, will improve accuracy.

 

[jd371]

They are great at clearing aptasia for me and only seem to bug micromussa lordhowensis. I have acros, gorgs, favias, chalice, nems, clam, coralamorphs, torch corals and other euphylia and the lords are the only thing they bothered.

This was my experience also and moved the Acan to a different tank. I do think he's been nipping at my Gorgorgian also. Unfortunately he hasn't touched any of the Aptasia and I've had him for a couple of months now so it looks like he's never going to. I kept him and his name is Deadbeat.

 

[EMeyer]

My filefish destroys every Aiptasia within a 2 block radius.

Unfortunately he does the same to almost any kind of zoa or paly.

Big, nasty, brown & green palys? Not interested. A tiny multicolored zoa frag that sells for stupidly high prices? THANK YOU, THAT LOOKS DELICIOUS!

 

[Mike N]

My filefish destroys every Aiptasia within a 2 block radius.

Unfortunately he does the same to almost any kind of zoa or paly.

Big, nasty, brown & green palys? Not interested. A tiny multicolored zoa frag that sells for stupidly high prices? THANK YOU, THAT LOOKS DELICIOUS!

That's my nightmare right there. My tank is full of zoas and euphyllia.
I'm planning on adding a filefish and keeping a watchful eye on him. If he goes after zoas, I hope he picks the cheap ones first.

 

[artieg1]

If he goes after zoas, I hope he picks the cheap ones first.

LOL, I don't believe this wish has ever been granted in the history of this hobby...

 

[MixedFruitBasket]

I had one that did a fabulous job of eating aptasia till he ran out then he set to work on my anthelia (which he ate every bit of) and then my Xenia, which he ate down to the rock. I am pretty sure he cleaned out a few zoas but I can't be sure.

 

[KrisReef]

I love filefish for aptasia. Sometimes they eat them voraciously and nothing else, especially if you are feeding the fish well. Other times they ignore the aptasia and only eat fish food. Acans, plate corals, zoos, palys, sps, lps, blastos, are just some of there favorite “fish foods” and what they eat depends on what they decide to eat. They are easy to keep as long as there is something available for them to eat.

Peppermint shrimp are similar in their feeding preferences but not quite as quick to “clean up their plate.”

Berghia are more aptasia-specific in their eating habits but they are also eaten by some of the fishes that people keep in their tanks. I’ve never used them, but filefish and peppermint shrimp have worked for me in the past. You just have to keep a daily watch on them to detect if they are eating things you are trying to keep alive in your tank.

 

[Mike N]

Well, it didnt take long to determine the reef safe-ness of my file fish. He's definitely been snacking on my frogspawn.

 

[lmm1967]

Mine doesn't seem to be touching zoas or xenia - but I'm pretty sure he went after SPS. The few pieces I had lost tissue slowly - one by one. There were never 2 SPS sticks losing tissue at a time. It would start on one - and over a couple days all the tissue would be gone - then another.

He definitely tears up any aiptasia - I only had a dozen or so when I put him in the tank - there are zero now.

Mine does eat any food I put in the tank - frozen, nori, pellets, whole clams (food - not giant).

 

[CindyKz]

My filefish destroys every Aiptasia within a 2 block radius.

Unfortunately he does the same to almost any kind of zoa or paly.

Big, nasty, brown & green palys? Not interested. A tiny multicolored zoa frag that sells for stupidly high prices? THANK YOU, THAT LOOKS DELICIOUS!

This was my experience exactly. I had the toughest time figuring out why I couldn't grow zoas in that tank, finally I added a frag to try again and watched Spike decimate it within 5 minutes. I had to choose....Spike is now helping a fellow reefer out with his aiptasia issue and I have zoas again

 

[Mike N]

This was my experience exactly. I had the toughest time figuring out why I couldn't grow zoas in that tank, finally I added a frag to try again and watched Spike decimate it within 5 minutes. I had to choose....Spike is now helping a fellow reefer out with his aiptasia issue and I have zoas again

I'm very happy mine didn't decide to go after zoas, but I like euphilia too, so he must go!

 

[exnisstech]

Mine ate everything except aiptasia. Just netted him last night and banished to the sump.

 

[jd371]

Update:
Looks like mine has finally started to eat some of the aptasia. I'm not noticing any aptasia out on the rocks anymore and only see the ones that are deep in the crevices of the rocks. Still looks like it's nipping at the gorgonian but besides that nothing else.

 

[Rybren]

My tank was full of aptasia; it took a while, but the filefish eventually got rid of them all. Then it cleared the tank of all of the zoas and then started on the Duncan colony. It left the shrooms, leathers, SPS, and other LPS alone.