The Butterfly Lover's Thread

[Fishfreak2009]

I received my Longnose butterflyfish from TSM yesterday morning He's very small, at about 2.5-3 inches. I hope he gets along with my much bigger CBB.

Those both look like really nice, fat, healthy butterflies!

 

[AustiniteReefer]

Those both look like really nice, fat, healthy butterflies!

Thank you! They're both piggies and eat like crazy!

 

[OrionN]

My pair is doing great

 

[Fishfreak2009]

I did lose my Pakistani. No idea why. Looked fine, stopped eating and found it dead within 48 hrs. Necropsy showed nothing out of the ordinary, no aggression from other fish, no signs of disease. Died after roughly 25 days in captivity.

I'll try again at some point, but will probably go with a different supplier. My pearlscale, ulietensis, and Heniochus varius are all doing great! Still begging for food all day, eating like pigs, and cruising around the tank.

I went looking for more butterflies tonight at the one LFS that is closer to me. Unfortunately they only had a longnose and a copperband, and neither would eat or looked particularly great. Holding off on a copperband until I find a perfect fish. I did find a few nice wrasses and some really nice captive bred seahorses though!

 

[i cant think]

Love my flavissimus.

 

[Fishfreak2009]

Well, I threw in some pieces of 3 different caulerpa varieties tonight. Going to see if any survive the lemonpeel angel and the 2 longspine urchins. Caulerpa racemosa, Caulerpa taxifolia, and Caulerpa peltata.

Also moved all the snails, hermits, the tiger pistol shrimp, the 3 brittle stars, and the 2 longspine urchins into the 100 gallon with the butterflies today, along with a few different Discosoma and Rhodactis mushrooms. They've done some nipping (mostly the ulietensis), but haven't outright eaten them. They actually seem to prefer going after the Nassarius snails moreso than the mushroom corals. This Friday I'm picking up a huge GSP rock, a few different varieties of zoas and Palys, some more Discosoma and Rhodactis mushrooms, a toadstool leather, a couple different Montiporas, and a Stylophora to try out from about 5 local reefers all interested in this experiment. I have a large (6"x6") Stylococcinella colony I've been growing out in my wife's evo on a frag rack that I may try as well.

 

[Costareefer]

My pair is doing great

I have a convict too with my butterflies and he seems to hang out with it. I don’t sense any aggression. Does your convict stick around your cbbs?

 

[OrionN]

I have my CBB and the Convict tang in a 40 gal breeder, which is my QT system. There is no aggression but the Convict is really active and often zoom really fast the length of the tank. This is disruptive to the CBB. I need to move all three to the DT soon. Maybe this weekend.

 

[Fishfreak2009]

Well, today was the big day to add corals! My local reef group (Southeast Michigan Reef) all came through and hooked me up with a TON of freebies to fill this tank with, so that the butterflies hopefully don't completely wipe out any particular coral. I added a couple mushrooms, a tiny turquoise polyp staghorn Acropora frag, and a Stylococcinella colony. Everything else (GSP, TONS of about 6 types of Palythoa, some more mushrooms, a green Sarcophyton, a couple small rose BTAs, TONS of different Monti caps, a couple different Monti digitatas, and some Pavona) all came from local reefers who wanted to help with this experiment.

So far, they've mostly nipped at damaged tissue (from transport) on the Monti caps and digitata, a little nipping at the Stylococcinella, but nothing crazy on any of them. They haven't touched anything else. Can't see any visible damage. They actually seem much more interested in the microfauna, worms, pods, etc that came off the corals. The Heniochus almost immediately ate both Aiptasia that I was able to see on the frags, picked them out from between the palys without even making the palys close up.

Shot a quick video, most of the corals aren't really opened up yet, but so far so good! You can see the Heniochus varius nipping at the red digitata colony in the video, but it's actually nipping at the skeleton covered in detritus, not at the healthy tissue at all.

 

[Fishfreak2009]

If anyone is curious about the butterflies and corals, most of the Monti cap bleached overnight the first night/2nd day, but some is doing ok. They nip at the spots that bleached, but leave the healthy tissue alone. They ate 1/4 of the Stylococcinella the second day, but haven't touched it since (and again the part they ate is the part that bleached). Haven't touched any palys, some of the smaller shrooms went missing but I think I can see them on the bottom in the back, they just detached. Didn't touch the leather, GSP, or bubbletip anemones. They ate almost all the red digitata, but won't touch the green, like actively avoid it. However the green looks fantastic, while about 80% of the red bleached overnight the first night/2nd day, so pretty sure they were eating the damaged polyps. They don't touch the hollywood stunner chalice or the pipe organ coral either. And surprisingly, they haven't touched either small (3/4") staghorn Acropora frag.

Basically they only ate stuff that bleached out, and I've since turned the lights down. Didn't think about them being closer to the surface since this tank is taller than the 75 gallon that was in the same spot, and accidentally blasted the monti caps, Stylococcinella, and the digitatas with close to 1000 par...

 

[Fishfreak2009]

Added some more palys today, and added a 2 headed frogspawn frag from a local reefer.

So far, they've completely ignored it. Same local reefer wants to hook me up with a Hippopus clam to try out.