Yellow Long-nosed Butterfly

[MarkW19]

How big a tank would a 2" one need?

 

[tmcpeek]

70 Gallon as it can get up to 9" in length

 

[Anemoneman]

I wouldn't. These are notoriously hard to keep.

 

[Sparky]

I agree with Anemoneman. I had a beautiful longnose butterfly fish, it was eating very good and swimming all over the place. Beautiful color and then one day, it just lost all the color and died. This process took about 2 hours. My water parameters were near perfect.

For the life of me I can not figure what happened to it. I had it for a couple of months with no problems whatsoever with it or with it's tankmates. Everyone got along just fine and still do. Kinda like the same thing that happened to the Rev with his Moorish Idol.

I would suggest that you really think about this one. I don't know about you, but it breaks my heart when I lose a fish, they are like my kids. I try very hard to make them a great place to live and take the time to keep the water as close to perfect as I can possibly get it. It really sucks when you put so much time and effort into something and one of your little friends dies on you.

But to answer your question, all my books say that you should have a minimum tank size of 75 gallons. Can be housed in a reef tank but with some caution because they can (but not in most cases) feed on corals.

HTH

Mike

 

[MarkW19]

Thanks guys.

Sparky - I'm the same. Even when a shrimp dies I'm upset! I lost 2 butterflys in QT, because of my own fault (ammonia spike etc.). But I read they're meant to be the more hardier of butterflys if kept in the right conditions?

Problem is, I'm a bit disheartened now because there aren't that many marine fish that really say "buy me now!" to me. And since I've spent a lot of time and effort on my setup, I want to be rewarded for it. I'll give it a go - maybe I'll have better luck than others!

 

[Sparky]

Well, if you must. Good luck with your fish. They are beautiful fish. I hope you have a better go at it than I did. It will be a while for me before I try that one again. I had near perfect conditiond for it to live and still lost it. It could have been something else that I wasn't aware of or something in my tank that I don't test for that was out of kilter. I just didn't have any reasonable explanation as to why it died.

Keep us posted as to your progress with it.

Mike

 

[leafyseadragon]

I intend to upgrade my system to a 75 gallon tank, just to have enough room for a longnose butterfly. From reading the section on these fish in the CMA, I gather they are not hardy, but not delicate either. But after reading these posts, now I am rethinking my strategy. Am I just interpreting the CMA using wishful thinking?

More importantly. would your comments above apply for all butterflies? I am also considering the saddleback, Pakistani/red-back, and the pearl-scale butterflies. Are these hardier?

 

[Fishboy-from-NY]

Even though every one here is really speaking the truth, and I agree with them 100%, there is a rare case once in a while that someone succeed. I would not take the chance in possibly killing a fish if I am not sure it can survive and the way I do it is find out what they eat in the nature habitat and if I feel that I can't give them that then it's an indication that fish would be trouble.

 

[Sparky]

More importantly. would your comments above apply for all butterflies? I am also considering the saddleback, Pakistani/red-back, and the pearl-scale butterflies. Are these hardier?

My comments are only my own experience with the Longnosed Butterflyfish. I really can not comment on the others without referring to my books. But you already have the books, so you probably have the same information I would have too. My comments were from my experience only.

Even though every one here is really speaking the truth, and I agree with them 100%, there is a rare case once in a while that someone succeed.

With an emphasis on the word rare. You never know, you could be that person. Whatever you choose, I wish you luck and I hope everything will work out for you.

Mike

 

[specialk]

I had one with no problems it ate everything I put in the tank. I got rid of it because it liked inverts and it will eat them. So if you have any inverts including star fish, this fish loves to snack on them. I gave it to a guy that still has him and it even survived his tank crash.
I have read many time they were not hardy, he was eating well before I got him so this may have made a difference. Also feed it sponges if you get one, buy sponges put them in your tank, the one I had pick at them all day long so I had to buy about 3 medium sponges a month for him.

Kaye