Anyone have butterflies outright kill corals?

[homegrowncichlid]

Just place 2 frags of brain/maze corals in with my butterflies, and one of them appears to be dead. Not sure if this is because the butterflies picked it to death or because the putty I used to mount it covered a little of its flesh. I kept the frags separated for a week to acclimate it to my tank before mounting, at which point it appeared to be healthy with tissue/polyps extended. Currently the tissue appears to be gone, and the skeleton is exposed.


Also placed some SPS in and as expected the polyps are not extending, The SPS appears to be healthy and intact, with no apparent damage, unlike the maze.
To have a butterfly pick a maze coral to death? That I was not expecting.


Anyway, a little background before everyone blames me for the obvious. I'm experimenting with what types of corals I can place successfully with butterflies. Some are doing well (chalice blastomusa welli) , some were eaten off (hammer and frogspawn).

 

[MIKE NY]

Obsolutely... Many species of butterflies feed exclusively on coral polyps. I have had many over the years and most will nip or outright eat corals. In my experience the more fleshy types of LPS like acans, open brains etc.. Are more tempting. I use an acclimation tank for newbies so they get acclimented to the DT water chemistry as well what I feed.... With new known corals eaters like Angels and butterflies I'll place frags of different corals in with them to see what they prefer. As far as butterflies I currently have a Pyramid which is totally reef safe and a Lemon which the verdict is still out, but hasn't touched anything so far. If it leaves my SPS alone I'm good with it.

 

[Mattl22]

Have 2 banner fish started with 4 the 2 lg ones died so 2 sm left and my sps extension is suffering I might up feeding see if that helps or if I can catch them out in my fuge will see no rush will just keep my eye on the corals the banner fish r really interesting to watch

 

[oh207]

I had a couple of heniochus butterfly and they left my hammer, frogspawn, and nems alone. All zoas, acans, and palys were main course.

 

[homegrowncichlid]

I keep a couple of Chaetodon species, not obligate coral feeders and I'm introducing non-fleshy corals. The maze coral didn't seem to be fleshy, just a thin layer of tissue, which I assumed would withdraw into the skeleton for protection. Maybe the tissue is too delicate compared to other corals which seem to have more rubbery (anemone like) tissue? hmm an extra variable I didn't consider before.


Now that I look at the capricornus, which I also placed (which is doing fine), there is a bruised thumb print area where I pressed in into the putty. I'm pretty sure I bruised the maze frag when I pressed that one down too and I may have pressed too hard. The maze frag is just 2 square inches in size, a little bit bigger than my thumb. Do you think that if I mounted the maze by holding it by the edge and if it was not bruised, it may have survived the butterflies? Anyway, I'll have to see how the other maze does, its a different species, but maybe close enough that I can consider it a parallel control.

 

[MIKE NY]

If you didn't actually see the butterflies picking at the maze then it is possible that the either or both the pressing down to hard or the putty could have cause the death. If any of the coral's tissue touchs the putty that alone could cause RTN, STN etc because as the putty hardens it gets hot. What species of butterflies do you have?

 

[homegrowncichlid]

Chaetodon ocellatus
Chaetodon capistratus


Looking now at 4 of the corals I've placed (including the the other maze, and 2 capricornus), there is a white spot of die off where my thumb pressed it down into the putty, Yes, the butterflies were picking at the maze as soon as I pressed it in. My hypothesis now is that the bruised tissue was flayed and torn as I pressed the tissue into the maze coral's rather sharp skeleton, which would then of course be picked off. The Caps has a rather flat skeleton and very little tissue, so there was no visible tissue broken, at least not enough to attract the butterflies attention.






Shame losing a coral because I didn't mount it before placing it in. Never had a real problem with that before I had butterflies. In the past, the coral would've been bruised, but will heal up by the end of the week.

 

[MIKE NY]

Yea I would believe that damaged frayed coral tissue swaying in the current would be an open invitation for those Caribbean species as well as many other species of Butterflies. I never tried a Foureye because of the fear of it eating my SPS and although I was able to wean Spotfins onto prepared foods i wasn't able to keep them long term.... They usually wouldn't last longer than a year or so.

 

[homegrowncichlid]

Ah, I've trained my butterflies onto pellets using an enclosed feeding station shown here. Started with live mussels, then frozen, then a frozen blend with pellets mixed in, then finally pellets. Took almost a year. Since I can target feed them so well, I figured I can place corals in.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTx3AKUIcQI

 

[oh207]

Ah, I've trained my butterflies onto pellets using an enclosed feeding station shown here. Started with live mussels, then frozen, then a frozen blend with pellets mixed in, then finally pellets. Took almost a year. Since I can target feed them so well, I figured I can place corals in.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTx3AKUIcQI

This is awesome!

 

[Mattl22]

That's a great idea might try thanks for posting

 

[homegrowncichlid]

Well, maze corals Platygyra species are too fleshy to be kept with butterflies. Now I know as the seemingly healthy one died out slowly over the past 2 weeks. They were too soft. The Montipora capricornis and the sentosa seem to be unaffected and growing. The porites species also died out, not directly from being eaten, but since it wasn't able to extend for the past 2 weeks since I posted, algae started to overgrown it. hmm, I need to find more SPS like the caps and sentosa, which have very little polyp extensions.

 

[MIKE NY]

I never had any problems with SPS and fish except for a Reticulated that I tried to wean off SPS to prepared foods. It literally would eat around the foods which I pressed into the coralites to eat the tissue.

 

[homegrowncichlid]

Success!
only took 9 monhts of moving coral back and forth between the tank with butterflies and the frag tank, before the butterflies learned to not pick on the SPS anymore, and the SPS learned not to extend fully anymore.

The frag rack in this photo has been in all week, with no apparent negative symptoms.

Basically, any new coral will get picked on and tasted as soon as it goes in. I then rescue that coral into a safe zone, where it can recover. I repeated this every few weeks until the butterflies stopped picking! Some coral didn't survive the process, but I fragged them up to increase my chances.
Now I have SPS, who do not fully extend, but are out half way and have adapted to butterfly picking, and butterflies who have tasted the these corals so much that they don't bother pecking on them for food any more, since pellets provide much more calories.

The next step is to see if the corals can actively grow in this tank!
Science experimenting moving forward!

 

[MIKE NY]

same here, just like in nature my SPS only extend PE at night....but they still look.

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[homegrowncichlid]

Ooh, nice, I'll have to take a look in the middle of the night to see how they are really doing.