auriga butterfly in reeftank OUCH

[reeferious]

had a baaaaaaaaaaaaad case of majano outbreak with literally hundreds covering rocks and even settling on living corals and clam mantles. i was using joe's juice, concentrated kalk paste and even electrocution to thin them down but they always come back and i ended up with about the same number as before. to even the odd i added a seagrass filefish which was supposed to pounce on majano like hog going after slop but obviously no one had taught this fish any of its supposed habits. next addition was an auriga butterfly i at first quarantined and provided with majano covered rock that the fish picked clean after 3 days. next couple frags thrown in were more or less ignored. feeling i had the fish trained on majano i released it into tank and it exploded into action taking sampling pecks at any and every corals before settling down to attack an acan and a red milli colony. the fish was taking turn attacking these two until it concentrated attack on the acan and stripped off 3/4 of its polyps before i intervened. meshing up bunch of majanos caught the butterfly's attention and i'm glad to say it has since dine mostly on majanos. now if i could turn the filefish's interest to majanos and between the two fish these devils wont stand a chance in hell.

[Delphinus]

I've been looking for Chaetodon ulietensis now for a while (false falcula) for the same reason of battling majano (they're out of control and far beyond manual intervention - short of removing rock and letting it dry out or something, they're winning).

My #2 choice was a raccoon butterfly. One of these came in this week, so we'll see how it does with the majano's. I don't have SPS in the tank in question so that's not a problem for me. However, I, .. um, eh heh heh .. have about 12 clams in the tank and one of the clams isn't even mine. :redface: Man I hope the butterfly doesn't develop a taste for bivalves. We shall see.

I heard about the filefish as an alternative to a butterfly but .. I dunno. Man that is a fugly fish. :lol: Can you post a picture? Maybe it's one of those things where they're so ugly they endear themselves to you after a while. :)

[i have crabs]

i dont have manjo's but aptasia is winning the war at my house, i bought a racoon but he is still in qt till the weekend i think, he went crazy for aptasia when i threw some in the tank for him, he also circles the rocks nonstop constantly hunting, i threw in a rock with a few other corals and he picked at the gsp once or twice but didnt really do anything to it,chomped all the tubeworms and left the button polyps alone, im knida scared to throw him in the reef tank but im at the point that i have too, if mine gets in the tank first ill let you know what he destroys,
ive never really cared much about butterflys but ive taken a liking to this guy and has become the favorite over the mystery wrasse in the qt with him.

[Skimmerking]

Ya Racoon butterflies are amazing at eating aptasia the Lfs here had one in a ref tank and never touched the corals not even the clams but you never know

[Delphinus]

Yeah I guess you never know until you know. I asked around and got very mixed opinions as to how sane it is to put the raccoon in. Some say they were OK, others say they ate everything and everything. The biggest wildcard from what I've read though was that things like anemones will be at risk. So a tank with BTA's carpets etc. would basically be a no-no.

[i have crabs]

i have a big condy but with the clowns guarding it im willing to give it a try, my next option is ripping the tank appart to either catch the fire shrimp or six line wrasse that keeps killing peppermint's everytime i add them