Matted Filefish or Copperband Butterfly?

[ponokareefer]

I have been having aiptasia issues for quite some time and tried numerous different things. Some of these things include, multiple times using kalk, lemon juice, aiptasia-x, and 3 times I've tried peppermint shrimp. My next experiment to get rid of aiptasia is to try a filefish or copperband. Which is a better choice? This is in a reef tank, so I'm aware that the filefish may eat some of my coral. The copperband, on the other hand, should be better with my corals, but doesn't have a very good survival rate. I am only interested in getting rid of my aiptasia here, so once it is gone, the fish could be sold as well if it is not working out.

I'm aware berghi's may be a different option, but price and availability are their downfall compared to the fish, so I wish to try the fish first.

[Proteus]

with either fish the aptasia will come back. id bite the bullet and find some bergia

[ILIKECOUGARS]

I would go with a copperband.

I got one from a fellow reefer here, and in a few days all the aiptasia disappear. And he even delivery it to me.:smile:

[ScubaSteve]

The filefish can go after corals as well but the copper band is a tougher specimen to keep. If you're up for the challenge, I say copperband (like, seriously try your best) otherwise go with berghia.

[dnalamb]

I currently have two matted filefish in the same tank and neither have touched corals. I have Kenya tree, brain, zoas and acans and my aiptasia is quickly dissapearing :)

[Reef Pilot]

I've had both Copperband and Pearlscale Butterfly fish. The Pearlscale were the best at ridding my tank from a severe aiptaisia infestation. When I first got them (about 2 years ago) they would nip at some corals, but now don't touch them. I feed them well, and they seem to have changed their tastes. However, they still constantly scour the rocks looking for a bite. Not sure what they are finding, but haven't seen an aiptaisia for a long, long time.

The other advantage with Pearlscales, is that you can have more than one in a tank, unlike Copperbands.

[ponokareefer]

Has anyone had problems with yellow tangs and copperbands?

[Reef Pilot]

Yup, Yellow Tangs really go after Copperbands when first introduced. Good news is that after a couple weeks, they settle down. However, during that time, you need to do what you can to protect the Copperband and distract the Yellow Tang. Mirrors and pics taped to the glass help.

[ILIKECOUGARS]

Has anyone had problems with yellow tangs and copperbands?

Only for the first week or so my yellow tang chase the copperband. All get along now.

[ponokareefer]

Thank you for everyone's input. I was going to go with a copperband, but the place I went to only had a healthy looking filefish available, so I grabbed it. It was in a tank with all types of corals and the staff told me that it wasn't picking on any of them, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

[mark]

In a tank full of aiptasia why are Copperbands difficult, would think they have a good food source? Don't they go for the aiptasia from the start?

[fishoholic]

In a tank full of aiptasia why are Copperbands difficult, would think they have a good food source? Don't they go for the aiptasia from the start?

Most CBB's don't live over a few months in captivity, even if there is aiptasia for them to eat. Also CBB's can eat tons of aiptasia fairly quickly so once it runs out if they are not eating frozen they can starve before the aiptasia comes back.

[reefwars]

got my copperband now on mysis,brine,cyclopeeze,pacifica plankton and a few different types of nls and fauna marin pellets not to mention fresg clam once a week.plus he hunts all day too.

he came only eating mysis , and didnt touch the aiptasia. once he pulled in his first nem it was game on a light went off in his head and bam ate the whole tank free of aiptasia in no time lol


i was scared as hell to get one over the years because of their bad rep for food and sudden deaths, im hoping i got lucky i dont think food will be a problem for mine unless he decides to stop eating for some reason.


filefish is still a safer choice imo,but i like the cbb colors and personality more though.

[Treebeard]

I have had 3 CBBs. The first two were small and only lasted a few weeks and died. I decided to try a larger one which was eating very well in the fish store. I had few aipitasia which it never touched, but it readily ate mysis and seemed to be thriving. It also cleaned every single feather duster from every rock. Eventually it stopped eating, got thin and perished. No more CBBs for this guy.

I have had a matted file fish for around 12 months and it cleaned up all of the aipitasia, although I never saw him eating it, I have none left. He picks away at the rocks but does not touch the corals.

In a tank full of aiptasia why are Copperbands difficult, would think they have a good food source? Don't they go for the aiptasia from the start?

[Aquattro]

I have had a matted file fish for around 12 months and it cleaned up all of the aipitasia, although I never saw him eating it, I have none left. He picks away at the rocks but does not touch the corals.

I've rarely seen any of mine eating aptaisia but it does go away. I've had 5 or 6 of these over the years and none have touched my corals, again, that i've seen. You can get one that does though, I believe Brett added one that went right for his SPS.

[Snappy]

Yeah fish are hit & miss for sure. Do either the CCB or the MFF eat mojanos as well as aptasia?

[paddyob]

with either fish the aptasia will come back. id bite the bullet and find some bergia

Berghias were a waste of money. The seller told me unless you breed them they are useless. It takes many to eliminate Aiptasia. And if you don't plan to drop a huge wad of cash for a dozen I would consider fish.

I myself can't rid my tank of a couple. Aiptasia x is crap. I think my Aiptasia eat it cause they come back larger after the treatment and that's ****ed up.

[paddyob]

Denny you know better! You know that cbb always die when they appear to be eating. I don't personally know anyone with success asides from claims on a forum that I can neither confirm or deny.

Avoid cbb.




got my copperband now on mysis,brine,cyclopeeze,pacifica plankton and a few different types of nls and fauna marin pellets not to mention fresg clam once a week.plus he hunts all day too.

he came only eating mysis , and didnt touch the aiptasia. once he pulled in his first nem it was game on a light went off in his head and bam ate the whole tank free of aiptasia in no time lol


i was scared as hell to get one over the years because of their bad rep for food and sudden deaths, im hoping i got lucky i dont think food will be a problem for mine unless he decides to stop eating for some reason.


filefish is still a safer choice imo,but i like the cbb colors and personality more though.

[marie]

Denny you know better! You know that cbb always die when they appear to be eating. I don't personally know anyone with success asides from claims on a forum that I can neither confirm or deny.

Avoid cbb.

CBB do not always die when they appear to be eating. I realize I am one of those pesky "forum claims" but I will have had my copperband 5 yrs next feb....there are pics in my 175g tank journal and he is still there in pics of my 300g upgrade

[reefwars]

i know several people who have cbb's for yrs as well

[Snappy]

ditto
I here the same about cleaner wrasses and mine is about 4 years in my system.

[paddyob]

i know several people who have cbb's for yrs as well

Yes. But do more people have them alive or are they dead now. Gotta look at the ratio. Even with cleaners snappy. We all know the facts.

Anyways. Good luck. Best to keep the op thread on topic... Unless hashing the normal debates is helpful.

[dreef]

I've had 2 CCB's thru the years,one lasted almost a year,not getting another. My matted filefish destroyed all my apatasia but got lazy once it discovered pelleted food,nori,and frozen food.He absolutely will destroy duncans and mini maxi's :(

[Spiny]

You went the right way. This was my tank a year ago before I added 2 filefishes. They never picked on corals except one torch which was ugly anyways! Zoas, SPS, Elegance, frogspawn... all untouched for a full year


http://i777.photobucket.com/albums/yy53/SpinyReef/20%20juil%202011%20frags/20%20juil%20dt/hts.jpg

[ponokareefer]

The filefish went after a large open brain coral, so I'm having to yank it out and put in my RSM130.

[Jackie]

I have aiptasia in sump but none in display tank, no UV.
I have my CBB for more than 3 years but never seen him eating any.

[Marlin65]

I have had my copper banded for over a year now and he cleaned up all my apitasia, and eats mysis and clams. No dry food. He eats out of my hand and is not shy at all my fav fish for sure. I find they need lots of food to eat.
I think ones it's eating it's an easy fish to keep. I do have a large tank with only a few fish though.
Mine is mid size not small and not large.

[mike]

ive never owned a filefish, but i purchased a copperband about 6 weeks ago. for the first 2 weeks i didnt notice the decrease in aiptasia. after that they were disappearing nightly. i now have none. i borrow rocks with aiptasia from my lfs, copper cleans them in a day or 2.

[Murph]

just to chime in ive had alot of luck with peppermint shrimps against aptasia cheap and effective and a good addidtion to any tank reef safe i think i paid like 15 buks.

[asylumdown]

I think the secret with CBB is to make sure they're getting enough food. They're such slow and considered eaters, that by the time they decide to suck up that piece of mysis, half the time it's either blown away or someone else has grabbed it. Over time they'll figure out how to compete (most fish usually do), but I think most starve to death before they really adapt. I think people would have much better overall success with them if they provided newly arrived CBB with a steady supply of clams on the half shell. I've never seen a CBB that didn't go ape $#%& for clams, newly arrived or not, and if you drop one in while it's still on the shell, it has all the time in the world to pick at it. That's how I acclimated my CBB to prepared foods. It quickly became my favourite fish, even though mine didn't seem to even see the aiptasia I bought him to eat.

Moral of the story, using an animal that isn't an obligate feeder of something to control that something is always hit and miss. Even animals that are supposed to love the thing you're trying to get rid of might not have gotten that particular memo.

I would also say that if you've tried peppermint shrimp to eliminate aiptasia (I did once, and it didn't work at all for me), don't bother with Berghia unless you can get all the shrimp out of the tank. Peppermint's like Berghia a heck of a lot more than they like aiptasia. As do several wrasses, and possibly CBBs. That was a very expensive lesson to learn.

[Murph]

Ha ha yes those Cbbs can be a little finicky usually i would drop in a couple of unopened clams once and a while it was hilarious watching it wait for them to open lol like crack for Cbbs but mine also eats mysis like a boss as far as aptasia
Guess I was lucky with my peppermint actually I noticed my female sebae clown takin some nips at it all I know is if I buy something with aptasia it's usually gone the next day and yes lol this hobby is filled with many expensive lessons
Ahh the joy happy reefing.

[ponokareefer]

Still no sign of any aiptasia being eaten. I'm coming to Edmonton again on Thursday, so will lookout for a copperband again.

[dnalamb]

How long have you had the filefish in there? Mine took abut 3 weeks then all of a sudden I went from thousands to next to none in a week. I almost got a CBB to but now no need. It even eats the 1 inch plus size ones. Don't give up on him just give him time.

[Murph]

Still Havin probs hey give a peppermint a try jus sayin there like 15 buks there worth a try I have bought alot of coral latley with aptasia on it and now none I seem my peppermint about three am basically pinching away where it was I have zero apatasia other tankmates are fairy wrasse,sunrise dottyback,orchid dotty pair of sebae clowns which I have seen attack it as well regal,yellow tang cleaner shrimp/peppermint lots of turbos and hermits if it does not get better you may have to attack it with a syringe and pure lemon juice inject right into the mouth it's a safe way as well but when you have an outbreak of aptasia I think a crew of supposedly known eaters at least one should work lol happy reefing.

[reefwars]

Hey go see steve he has a few cbb that look great:)

Fwiw I have had success with peps and filefish but my cbb is by far my favorite fish of all time, this morning he took his first pellets :)

[Spyd]

I had great success with my CBB. It ate like crazy! But, the LFS here gets them eating before you purchase them... Novel idea!! I watched it pig out on mysis before I bought it. It took care of the few aiptasia heads that were tucked in with my zoas from my old system. The only problem with the CBB was that it also liked SPS!! It liked to pick the flesh right off of some of my nicest corals. I ended up having to sell it for that reason alone.

I would go with Berghia Nudibranches. Yes, they are a little pricey but they are completely reef safe and only eat aiptasia. They are the safest bet to rid your tank of aiptasia. Once it is all most gone, then sell some off and get our money back. They are a very easy sell!!

[asylumdown]

FWIW I spent over a grand on berghia trying to fix Aiptasia in my 90 gallon, which was so over-run by the time I broke it down you literally couldn't see the rocks any more (10,000 plus anemones). They never made a dent, I think I only ever saw one anemone completely vanish. This was over the course of 7 months.

I had assumed it was because the peppermine shrimp I bought as a first attempt to deal with the problem were eating the nudibranch's and their eggs instead, and I also had a couple of wrasses that could have picked them off. Now that I'm in the process of developing a similar problem in a much larger tank, I bought 20 berghia from Salty Underground (was around 400 with shipping). This time I have no shrimp, and the tank has no fish in it at the moment, so I thought that it would be different.

I know I'm being impatient here, but the nudibranch's went in 7 days ago, and I haven't seen a single aiptasia disappear. Not one. In fact, I think they've multiplied. The closest I came to seeing one at work was a few days ago when one of my larger aiptasias (many times the size of a nudibranch) suddenly exploded those strands of white stinging cells and deflated for no reason. The angle was bad so I couldn't see if there was a nudibranch at it's base in the rock. 6 hours later though, the anemone was completely recovered. Berghia are great in theory, but to solve a moderate aiptasia problem I think you need about three times what most people are willing to pay for them. On top of that, gettting them to breed in a reef tank is extremely difficult, as just about everything that lives on live rock will eat their eggs, and, at least according to salty underground, only some of the larvae that hatch are benthic, fully formed nudibranchs, they can also hatch pelagic larvae that will get sucked up by your overflow and skimmed out. Unless your tank is free of absolutely anything that will eat them, and you can somehow get them to breed in your tank, they're an expensive gamble.

I'm desperately hoping that in a couple of weeks I'll be able to re-post and say 'never mind, aiptasia problem solved', but they didn't work on the last tank, and if they don't work on this tank, with nothing but hermit crabs to possibly predate them, I'm going to put them firmly in the 'not worth the money' category.

[ponokareefer]

So after nothing was happening with my filefish, my brother let me borrow his copperband. 2 weeks later, the aiptasia is gone. I didn't see either fish eat it, so can't confirm for sure it was the CBB.

[subman]

I added 3 peppermints to my 225 not expecting much and have yet to see them since introducing them but the aiptaisa are disappearing so I guess they are working.
I love cbb's but don't trust them with clams.