Many Butterflyfish have reputations for being challenging to keep, as many of them have very specific diets, and Yellownose Butterflyfish have an undeserved reputation as they are not obligate corallivores (something that eats only coral). In the wild, Yellownose graze on algae and the correlated life on the rock of the reef. This includes many things that reef aquarists try to culture such as coral, sponges and other sessile (non-moving) invertebrates. While this makes them prohibitive to keep in reef aquaria, it generally means they are more open to trying a wide variety of foods, and thus easier to segue onto a prepared diet. As grazers they get a little bit of everything in their diet, and trying to mimic this is important. In house, we base their captive diet around high quality frozen foods and Nutramar shots as these offer a very balanced nutritional profile and the butterfly fish like to pick at them, mimicking a normal feeding activity for them. This fish consumes a lot of macroalgae in the wild and so we also supplement their diet with a variety of Nutramar algae. For a hobbyist with a very picky eater, they can generally be induced to captive feeding with irresistible foods like Gamma Cockle in Shell, Nutramar Ogo etc. Read More Here
