Australian Stripey - Feedback from Past Users (lol)

[D3DPrintedThingz]

125 mixed reef all kinds of fish coral it is safe to assume that yes it is in my tank. good , bad, medium , i am extremely "inclusive". the spaghetti worms freak me out, the barnicles are hilarious, the vermitid are the devil, and the aiptasia I had under control. Tons of it, so I introduce two blue kleini butterflyfish. All gone within a week, and after a year one decided to destroy a hammer coral in a day, like came home from work to see it finishing off the last few branches. i had a hunch it had been nipping at coral but not enough to kill it (the coral, I do not mean kill the fish, I am proofreading). so i move naughty fish to sump and a few encrusting coral and SPS i have looked extremely healthy. Yay , i thought. but the reason i got the butterflyfish was to eat aiptasia and now 1/2 butterflies in display the aiptasia starting to rear its ugly head.

now there are three australian stripey at LFS for $90 / piece. I love these fish (from afar) every time I see them . They eat aiptasia , but I am wondering if I would put myself right back in the same position of my corals getting nipped at.

what is the general feedback , if any , on this relatively newer fish in the hobby ? reef safe ? will eat my mushrooms ? mean ? I realize that each persons individual experiences would in a way be anecdotal evidence but hey it is an online forum and the reason we are here is to share our experiences i could argue so bring on the stripey anecdotes.

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

what is the general feedback , if any , on this relatively newer fish in the hobby ? reef safe ? will eat my mushrooms ? mean ? I realize that each persons individual experiences would in a way be anecdotal evidence but hey it is an online forum and the reason we are here is to share our experiences i could argue so bring on the stripey anecdotes.

No personal experience (so consider this a bump for your thread here), but from what I've heard on the forum, they seem to be coral-safe fish.

 

[Dburr1014]

This says with caution. I have never seen one in person.

https://www.marinecollectors.com/products/australian-stripey

 

[Lbrdsoxfan]

Good price for the stripey, from 1st hand experience, they are fairly coral friendly. LPS seems to be a crapshoot.

As I brought up in a few other threads the Kleini butterfly isnt reef safe as people claim. 1st go around I lost a LOT of nice zoas to it. I have one now, I'm just running my softie tank on what it will and won't eat!

 

[dennis romano]

I've always liked them, but never pulled the trigger to buy one. It says that in nature, they are a schooling fish, mainly plankton eaters. The two times that I have seen them at the LFS, there was one dominant stripey beating the daylights out of the others in the tank.

 

[D3DPrintedThingz]

I've always liked them, but never pulled the trigger to buy one. It says that in nature, they are a schooling fish, mainly plankton eaters. The two times that I have seen them at the LFS, there was one dominant stripey beating the daylights out of the others in the tank.

LFS has three that are $90 each , which is an outstanding price point. The gentleman who works there is weirdly an extremely knowledgable fellow who has turned the fish store a complete 180 over the last year, so I do trust what he tells me and he reports the reason he purchased three is because they are happiest in at least groups of 3. I don't have the room for three more fish and I dont want to have a scared fish in my tank. ive seen others keep them individually , and seem happy enough , but i also have some bully fish that are well established that torment new fish.

Good price for the stripey, from 1st hand experience, they are fairly coral friendly. LPS seems to be a crapshoot.

As I brought up in a few other threads the Kleini butterfly isnt reef safe as people claim. 1st go around I lost a LOT of nice zoas to it. I have one now, I'm just running my softie tank on what it will and won't eat!

i still have one blue face kleini in the display that never bothers anything , but not nearly the appetite for aiptasia as the otheri had to move to the sump. i do believe the fish 'went rogue' in a way as once i saw it eating the hammer i decided id catch & move it. with 17 fish in the tank i put a net with a frozen cube in it, and within 5 minutes the fish swam in the net to get food and was caught , all in less than 10 minutes. that tells me this would have been the fish that ... would have been picked last for dodgeball, ill put it that way. i still love both of them and i even made him a little nori feeder and frozen feeder for the sump so he can stay well fed. ive finally had some encrusting and chunky LPS coral taking off so I am thinking I am going to pass on the stripey :( I will eventually get some berghia for the aiptasia but one of the kleini is keeping it relatively at bay so far

 

[vic5hands]

They do not get along with cleaner wrasses and GOBIES. They eat anemones . When you have three in a tank, they act like piranhas.

 

[BryanM]

I have generally had bad luck with "with caution" fish.

If you have extensive aquascape this usually makes catching a potential offender VERY difficult.

I ended up paying an aquarium servicing company $200 to catch a red coris wrasse that was wreaking havoc on my tank, moving copious amounts of sand around and killing corals because of it.

I would leave them at the LFS.

 

[vandy]

I love my stripey. He is an aiptasia eating MACHINE and never picks at other coral. He's also dumb as hell and acts as dither fish so my other fish feel more comfortable / less skiddish. I'll always put one in my tank. Will prob need to get rid of him and get another though once he fully transitions to his adult phase (from white to yellow)

 

[Science/G]

$90 for a Stripey is a great price. They're a super cute fish, with a great personality. My stripey ate three times his body weight in majano anemones in less than a month. He hasn't touched any of the other corals in the aquarium. I love that fish.