Anemones and Butterflies?

[SabrinaC]

Will filefish or orange butterfly fish (Chaetodon kleinii) eat a BTA, LTA, RFA, or tube nem? Since those fish are known to eat aiptasia, which is an anemone, I wasn’t sure if they would eat other nems as well.

I lost almost all my coral in my 200g to an aiptasia plague.

Berghia and file fish didn’t work due to the rate of reproduction of those demon aiptasia. I honestly never even saw either of the 2 filefish I purchased touch the aiptasia. A Chaetodon kleinii is the only thing that saved my tank.

I now have 2 filefish, a Chaetodon kleinii, and then several other reef safe fish in the 200g, but no coral unfortunately. I moved what I had left into my smaller tanks.

I know corals are a no go because of those fish, but that’s the trade off for not having aiptasia. I want to keep my butterfly since it was a proven aiptasia eating workhorse. I was hoping anemones might be a possibility, but if not, it is what it is. It would definitely make my clowns happy like the clowns in my 50g with their nems.

 

[Subsea]

My 75G display has tube anemone, flame scallops with a wall of green star polyps & silver Xenia along with much diver collected live rock. Butterfly fish & diver collected live rock are the best things that I have done in this 35 year mature tank.

The butterfly’s eliminated Aptasia. While I don’t see them grazing on the soft coral polyps, there is much live food on the rocks and the biofilms on surfaces of ornamental seaweeds. Flame scallops, feather dusters and rock/flower anemone are happy.. When I blast live rock surfaces & stir seaweeds the butterfly fish exhibit feeding behavior. I see them foraging in substrate for spaghetti worms & stuff.

In most cases, if fish are hungry, they will adopt different feeding behavior. I feed heavy and let the janitors clean up the leftovers.