Matted Filefish- experiences.

[Zionas]

What are your experiences with Matted (Aiptasia Eating) Filefish? Other than their (often unreliable) reputation for eating Aiptasia and (more commonly) moving onto corals, in terms of personality aside from their relatively drab appearance are they worth it?

Are they easy to get onto dry food and how long do they live for?

 

[SeaDweller]

What are your experiences with Matted (Aiptasia Eating) Filefish? Other than their (often unreliable) reputation for eating Aiptasia and (more commonly) moving onto corals, in terms of personality aside from their relatively drab appearance are they worth it?

Are they easy to get onto dry food and how long do they live for?

Mine actually goes after aiptasia. Ugly fish, but does its job.

 

[fish_collector]

I have 3, 2 in my sps display and the other in my frag tank. The 2 in my display tank are male and female, the male being identified by small bristles at the base of his tail, I know filefish have bristle looking things all over their body, but the males bristles are quite unique if you get the chance to see one.

Anyways, before I put them into my sps display, there were perhaps hundreds of aiptasia. Now a few months later there are none. I don't ever see them picking at aiptasia but the fact that now they're gone pretty much sums up that they're eating them.

I have no issues with the filefish picking at sps corals however there are some members in our club that report theirs pick at LPS corals regularly.

My filefish have the best personality of any fish I have. They aren't particularly good swimmers but I like how they will fan their tail out and use it as a rudder when swimming in front of a wavemaker. They will also eat anything I put in the tank, frozen mysis and brine, flake, freeze dried mysis, pellets, nori etc. ORA estimates their life expectancy at 4-6 years but may be longer if well fed in captivity.

 

[VintageReefer]

Mine ate all my aptasia and readily ate flake and mysis. Despite feeding multiple times a day, once the aiptasia was gone he started experimenting on acans, torches and hammer. Feeding didn’t help. It wouldn’t stop him. He ate plenty of flake and mysis and minutes later would go back to picking at lps.

 

[BetteMidler]

If you are worried about this fish eating Corals? Watch this video.

 

[Tangy Reefer]

What about inverts? Did they eat any ornamental shrimp? Will they go after bubble tip anemones?

 

[Zionas]

How long have people had them for?

 

[JumboShrimp]

I had a rather large one in a FOWLR for a few years. Friends would comment on it... think, 'it's so ugly it's cute' kind of a thing. It really grew on me too, especially once I realized that it was completely normal for it to more or less 'float' around still, hanging in the water at all sorts of odd angles.