chaetodon miliaris

[Moort82]

Anyone kept these? I see from research they are pretty well behaved for a butterfly in terms of corals but would love to hear peoples experience particularly with lps. Also according to Scott Michaels pocket guide they are red when it comes to starfish (which I can't remember if it means starfish or inverts in general, if it is only feather dusters etc I wouldn't be worried but I love my brittlestars so don't want them getting munched). Again experience would be good.

TIA

[Dmorty217]

They are labeled as "good beginner fish" and are daily cheap. They need space to swim like all butterfly's and can be kept in pairs. Other than that I'm not sure I have much more to offer

[ntropics]

I had one for several years. At first he was very coral friendly. I had been feeding several times per day (divided up the food of course) but someone on the forum said I should cut down to once per day, I think not realizing that I was feeding very small amounts. Being a newbie at the time, I just followed the advice. That's when the trouble began. The fish started tasting corals (I only had a few) and never stopped.

So it is hit or miss with butterflies. I've had quite a few in the last incarnation of my tank. I think that the miliaris butterfly is, however a nice fish, and easy as butterflies go. I would think twice about adding it to a reef tank.

Bruce

[Moort82]

I'm not minding the riskiness of the species tbh as that comes with the territory. I am a little worried that they may get much bigger than I'm expecting. In the Scott Michael book it says 5" as it does on LA but I've seen elsewhere that they get bigger. I'm not a fan of crowding fish and I was banking on a probably 4" realistically but wouldn't feel comfortable much above that. So unless they don't actually get that big I might put it on the backburner for a while.