Butterflyfish for Mixed Reef

[Alumentum]

Hello!

I'd like to eventually keep cheaper/tougher SPS, some LPS like frogspawn and gonipora, and softies like shrooms and leathers. Are there any butterfly fish that are typically safe with these? I know none are 100% but it helps to have input from people who've kept them.

Some of my favorite butterfly fish that I'm eying up are:

Chaetodon collare - Pakistan Butterfly
Chaetodon rafflesi - Latticed Butterfly
Chaetodon punctatofasciatus - Spotband Butterfly
Chaetodon ephippium - Saddleback Butterfly
Chaetodon xanthurus - Pearlscale

 

[areefer01]

Hello!

I'd like to eventually keep cheaper/tougher SPS, some LPS like frogspawn and gonipora, and softies like shrooms and leathers. Are there any butterfly fish that are typically safe with these? I know none are 100% but it helps to have input from people who've kept them.

Some of my favorite butterfly fish that I'm eying up are:

Chaetodon collare - Pakistan Butterfly
Chaetodon rafflesi - Latticed Butterfly
Chaetodon punctatofasciatus - Spotband Butterfly
Chaetodon ephippium - Saddleback Butterfly
Chaetodon xanthurus - Pearlscale

Know upfront that all fish are different as are our experiences with them as fellow hobbyist. One thing I've noticed with my few butterflyfish (none of which are on your list) is that soft corals never make it. By soft I am talking about Xenia and Xenia looking corals. In my case Xenia and Blue Cespitularia didn't stand a chance. My Milletseed Butterflyfish nips at all of my SPS which keeps the polyps in check during the day.

I have Corky Sea Finger which they leave alone. LPS (Torch, Frogspawn, Hammer) they leave alone. Alveopora is left alone as is my gonipora.

TL; DR - soft corals in my experience are more at risk. SPS gets drive by nip and tucks but may be for algae, debris, or lodged food as they continue to grow. Not sure if you looked at all but every one on your list is typically labeled as "No" - not reef safe.

 

[Alumentum]

TL; DR - soft corals in my experience are more at risk. SPS gets drive by nip and tucks but may be for algae, debris, or lodged food as they continue to grow. Not sure if you looked at all but every one on your list is typically labeled as "No" - not reef safe.

Yes, wasn't sure if they preferred specific kinds of corals like your millet seed seems to. That said, I've pretty much assumed that open brain types and polyps like xenia, yellows, gsp and zoanthids were out. I'll look more into millet seed butterflies. I'm curious how the pyramids and banner butterflies usually work out?

 

[dennis romano]

The butterflies that you have listed are basically generalist feeders. That means that they will eat just about everything. I'm currently running a FOWLR with butterflies. Over the years, I have experimented with different corals, both hard and soft, and anemones and found that basically nothing is safe. There is only one species in the Heniochus genus that is considered reef safe but is next to impossible to tell it apart from the coral eater. As for the pyramids, people report that they are ok.

 

[areefer01]

Yes, wasn't sure if they preferred specific kinds of corals like your millet seed seems to. That said, I've pretty much assumed that open brain types and polyps like xenia, yellows, gsp and zoanthids were out. I'll look more into millet seed butterflies. I'm curious how the pyramids and banner butterflies usually work out?

Milletseeds are captive bred only these days due to being Hawaiian endemic and therefore rare. When they become available they go rather quickly. Zoster and Pyramid you will see in reefs but again some soft corals are at risk. So back to Xenia and some zoa's being at risk.

Probably circles back to what corals you really want to keep and the risk level you are willing to take. I have made a few changes such as feeding dry pellet mix hourly with an auto feeder (small portions) and two frozen feedings per day. Seems to be working for me and I'm ok with not having a few soft corals.

 

[Alumentum]

Awesome, thanks for the input everyone. I'll look into milletseeds and and zosters and look for more info on what corals they target. I'm fine with not having polyps, but my leathers and shrooms are must haves lol.

 

[Dicey1]

I have a raccoon and a vagabond butterfly and so far they do eat all Xenia. My Cespitularias, toadstool, spaghetti finger leather, and Duncan’s are not touched. Just got a cauliflower colt a few days ago and so far they haven’t touched it. I have a few zoas but they’ve been picked on and probably won’t make it. This is just my experience with these two butterflies. Hope this helps.

 

[littlefoxx]

I have a kleini butterfly who never ate corals until I put torches in my tank. Then he ate them all pretty much overnight! Evil little devil lol

 

[Peterrdee]

I heard manyspined and thomsons butterfly’s are plankton eaters just like black pyramid zosters and yellow pyramids maybe Heniochus dipreutes also? My yellow pyramid never ate any of my corals when I had it, but my yellow tang bullied the poor thing, I now have a teardrop, I’ve tried many butterflies some never lasted long because I wasn’t careful

 

[NotReefsafe]

Experiences with Longnose and Pearlscale?

If you designed a tank around butterflies, what corals would you put in it?

 

[zen]

I have 2 full grown pyramid butterfly in a mixed reef tank. In the last 2 weeks I've added Duncans, Candy Cane, neon Sinularia, cabbage, rhodactis, torches and gorgonian and yesterday 2 zoa frags. So far they ignore everything including other sps and lps. I only ever had an issue with 4 hammer frags that I had to put in the refugium to recover. The hammers all survived, they just stayed retracted due to constant nipping and have since recovered. The problem only started because I started rubber-banding nori sheets to rocks and dropping them in along the front of the tank for the fish to nibble (so I basically unintentionally trained them to look for food along their swim path). I saw a video about butterflyfish where they will sometimes randomly nip corals in their swim path and simply moving that coral to another location will stop the behavior because they aren't actively searching for the coral instead they are either opportunistically nipping because it's near where they swim or it's somehow in their way. The video was from an old MACNA talk in 2016 but Bob Fenner dove into butterflyfish in reef tanks and collated info from other reefers experiences even naming specific corals targeted by specific butterflyfish. I did recently see a reef tank on youtube however with a pearlscale and another type of butterfly. Basically it's trial and error, so do your research. I included 2 videos I found on the subject. Hope that helps.

Butterfly Fishes and their use in Marine Aquariums by Bob Fenner

Butterfly Fishes and their use in Marine Aquariums by Bob Fenner

macna.org

 

[zen]

Here's another thread with useful info

Butterfly fish in the reef Aquarium

Hi all, I did several searches and I have not found this topic, at least in the manner I intend, discussed but I do apologize if there was one I missed. A little background on my tank: 300 gallon actual water volume, tank and sump including rock. Predominately SPS 3 years + Moderate fish load...

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