Looking for a Matted File Fish

[TWallace]

Another fish I've had great luck with for aiptasia/majano is the double saddle butterfly fish. There are 2 species of this (Chaetodon falcula and C. ulietensis). They look nearly identical, but falculas tend to cost twice as much. Both were great for aiptasia and majano eradication in my tank, and even better, both are relatively eager eaters for a butterfly fish. My ulietensis ate anything I gave him (even flake and pellet food). My falcula only ate frozen bloodworms, which was fine as it's an easy to find food. I had hundreds of aiptasia and all are gone now and haven't seen any in months. Neither fish was a problem with SPS or clams. I don't have feather dusters, but I hear any Chaetodon will devour those.

Both fish are way more hardy than a copperband, and way more likely to accept frozen/flake foods. They're probably more likely to bother corals than a copperband, though I had no issues. Occasionally they'd nibble at stylophora and pocillopora, but never caused any damage. They also occasionally nibbled zoanthids, but again did not affect them. I never saw either bother acroporas.

 

[eww]

Another update. Majano's nearing a count of 100 have been completely eradicated and now it appears he has wiped out the aiptasia population (some of them quite large) as well, at least everything we can see. It also eats whenever we feed the tank (Rods Food) so we know it will not starve now that it appears it's other food is gone. No coral nipping seen at all yet. This fish has worked well for us and we hope others would experience the same. Thanks again BRA.