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#4
12-20-2013, 06:39 AM
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It depends on the wrasse. I have a yellow coris wrasse and he "could" eat my shrimp or snails but hasn't so far, just keep him fed. You won't need the shrimp for long if the are like mine, and they were only 12 bucks. Cheap aptasia killer.
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#5
12-20-2013, 04:25 PM
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My copper band will only eat small aiptasia, there seems to be a magic threshold that, once passed, he stops seeing them as food. He would be no good at cleaning up an aiptasia problem, but has been pretty effective at stopping one from coming back. I say this to illustrate the point that even with known winners like CBBs, there can be significant variation from fish to fish, so it's difficult to say how either of those two fish will react in your tank. On the upside, mine leaves ornamental clams and corals alone, while others have been known to tear in to tridacnids like they're on a sashimi special.
I think a file fish will be a more reliable predator of aiptasia, but I've also heard they're much more likely to eat other polyps like zoanthids too. If you don't have any/many zoas, this might not be a problem for you. And I think all mystery wrasses can and will eat shrimp eventually, small crustaceans are a normal part of their diet. Adding the shrimp after the wrasse exacerbates this risk.
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#7
12-20-2013, 05:01 PM
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What are the specs of your tank/current stock list? I personally would be hesitant to put a CBB in anything smaller than 90 or a maybe a 75, and they seem to get beat up on a lot by other families of fish. Acanthurus genus tangs seem to have a hate on for butterflies, for example. My CBB is the second longest resident of this tank, and when I added a PBT a few weeks ago, the first thing it did was try to kill the butterfly. They've worked it out now, but I'm sure it could have gotten ugly if I had added the fish in a different order.
Also CBB are notoriously difficult to acclimate. I had zero success with them when I was adding them directly to the tank. They're crappy food competitors in general, and I've never seen a CBB in a store that was not already dangerously under weight, so unless they're already aggressively recognizing what you feed as food when they go in they can easily starve to death before they figure the whole eating thing out. They're as robust as any fish when they're a healthy weight and established, but getting them there takes special care. I wouldn't buy one unless I had the means to train it and fatten it up separately before adding it to the display. That alone might be a reason to not get the CBB. I've never kept a file fish so I can't speak to their care requirements at all. On the upside, a healthy, eating, captivity adjusted CBB is easily sold if it doesn't work out for whatever reason, as is a filefish.
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#9
12-22-2013, 01:24 PM
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Well, my Pearlscales first ridded my tank of aiptasia 3 years ago, and continue to keep them free of these pests. And they don't bother my corals. Plus they are a nice looking fish, and totally peaceful.
And I did have a CBB for 1.5 years too, before I got the Pearlscales. While I got him eating properly (incl dried foods), he didn't make a dent with the aiptasia.
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Reef Pilot's Undersea Oasis: http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/sho...d.php?t=102101 Frags FS: http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/sho...d.php?t=115022 Solutions are easy. The real difficulty lies in discovering the problem. Last edited by Reef Pilot; 12-22-2013 at 01:27 PM.
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#10
12-22-2013, 02:27 PM
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Well my dwarf lion got a expensive meal , I fed him a lot last night until he couldn't eat no more . Bought the largest peppermint I could find twice the size of my fire . And he was running around with half him sticking out . I don't see him today . Half tempted to put the lion in the sump for a while :/
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