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meow?
11/26/2007, 10:57 PM
Hi,

Does anyone know of any online store that caters to the harder to find butterfly's Mainly the corallivore butterfly's. I noticed RC has a couple of them that do but I need a tad more of a selection. One that would include C. larvatus.

Any help at all would be appreciated either by reply or PM.

marc price
11/26/2007, 11:52 PM
i've come across exclusive coral eaters including a good number of c. larvatus at that fish place/that pet place over the years, some of the orange-face larvatus's ate frozen food and black worms.

zemuron114
11/27/2007, 01:57 AM
why do you want corallivores? they will surely die unless you feed them coral frags. The nicest butterfly in general i think is the ornate. so beautiful watching them swim in and out of the coral heads. I caught a 1/2" baby, but through it back. No reason for those types of fish to be caught...

triggerfish1976
11/27/2007, 07:39 AM
I am curious as well.

SDguy
11/27/2007, 08:51 AM
Has there been a breakthorugh in providing a diet for these types of butterflies?

triggerfish1976
11/27/2007, 08:59 AM
Not that I know of. I have seen a few hobbyists on other sites that have been trying to buy small specimans of these fish in order to try and ween them onto prepared foods with the idea that if you can ween juvenile angelfish, that normally become sponge eaters when they mature, onto a prepared food diet that you could do the same with these butterflies. I tend to think that this idea is flawed because the obligate coral eating butteflies have physical traits that have eveolved in order for them to eat coral polyps efficiently. I am not saying that it would not work in select cases but I don't see it being a general success.

SDguy
11/27/2007, 10:15 AM
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11263461#post11263461 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by triggerfish1976
Not that I know of. I have seen a few hobbyists on other sites that have been trying to buy small specimans of these fish in order to try and ween them onto prepared foods with the idea that if you can ween juvenile angelfish, that normally become sponge eaters when they mature, onto a prepared food diet that you could do the same with these butterflies. I tend to think that this idea is flawed because the obligate coral eating butteflies have physical traits that have eveolved in order for them to eat coral polyps efficiently. I am not saying that it would not work in select cases but I don't see it being a general success.

Hmmm, I remember people trying this 17 years ago. I even did it, getting a pair of triangulum (baronessa?) butterflies to live a couple months eating VHP Formula from Ocean Nutrition. But they still didn't last....

I'm sure people have been trying the whole time since then. It's a shame people keep trying the same unsuccessful methods :(

triggerfish1976
11/27/2007, 10:30 AM
My thoughts exactly. I have seen so many different methods used to in order to try and keep these fish but at the end of the day they were all pretty much unsuccessful.
It would be interesting to see how they would do in a large, healthy SPS dominated tank. I have seen a few hobbyists have luck with keeping Orange Spotted Filefish in these types of setups but butterflies seem to have a much bigger appetite and I wouldn't be surprised if the coral growth could keep up with their feeding habits.

SDguy
11/27/2007, 11:44 AM
I remember a guy from waikiki aquarium (??) posted something in a similar thread about having some coralivorous butterflies in some of their displays....not sure on any of the details/specifics...

triggerfish1976
11/27/2007, 12:25 PM
Well if anyone could make it work it would be Charles Delbeek.

marc price
11/27/2007, 02:18 PM
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11263991#post11263991 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by triggerfish1976

"It would be interesting to see how they would do in a large, healthy SPS dominated tank".


that seems to be illusion generated when they show up at the lfs's. i haven't heard of long term success, perhaps in very large public aquaria. from what i've read they feed on a specific species of coral, it's been theorized that some species feed on the mucous of those corals. i'd like to think they're not specifically ordered and just get included in the shipments to fill an order. they don't belong in the majority of our aquariums.

triggerfish1976
11/27/2007, 03:12 PM
Marc,

Excellent point.
I think the same thing can be said about hobbyists who try and feed sponge eating angelfish sponges from different oceans. I cringe every time I see a AUS angelfish being fed an Atlantic sponge.

meow?
11/27/2007, 11:21 PM
Marc,

I appreciate you answering my question I checked thatfishplace.com it didn't look like there was to much there I'll keep my eyes open though:D

trigger,

I have seen a few hobbyists on other sites that have been trying to buy small specimans of these fish in order to try and ween them onto prepared foods with the idea that if you can ween juvenile angelfish, that normally become sponge eaters when they mature, onto a prepared food diet that you could do the same with these butterflies. I tend to think that this idea is flawed because the obligate coral eating butteflies have physical traits that have eveolved in order for them to eat coral polyps efficiently. I am not saying that it would not work in select cases but I don't see it being a general success.

Got a link:fish1:

ChemLife
11/28/2007, 05:53 AM
I seem to remember that Atlantis Aquatics had a school of reef bannerfish (Heniochus acuminatus) that grazed on the corals enough that the herd had to be thinned out... the problem is I can't remember when I heard this from. I think it was from Gregory Schiemer's IMAC talk "Reef Aquarium Fish". He discussed keeping large angelfish, pygmy angelfish and butterflies in reef tanks.

The video can be seen at www.reefvideos.com.

HTH.

ChemLife

ChemLife
11/28/2007, 06:01 AM
I seem to remember that Atlantis Aquatics had a school of reef bannerfish (Heniochus acuminatus) that grazed on the corals enough that the herd had to be thinned out... the problem is I can't remember when I heard this from. I think it was from Gregory Schiemer's IMAC talk "Reef Aquarium Fish". He discussed keeping large angelfish, pygmy angelfish and butterflies in reef tanks.

The video can be seen at www.reefvideos.com.

HTH.

ChemLife