Longnose Butterflies

[FishyReef]

Anyone tried one of these guys in a reef tank before? I've been reading up on them and it seems like they are safe with coral, just iffy with shrimp inverts. They are listed as carnivores on LA. Curious what others experiences are with them. Thanks!

 

[AnthonyTheNewbie]

I'm curious as well, following. Awesome looking fish, just didn't like the "not reef safe" part. But, inverts I'm okay with restocking, corals, not so much lol.

 

[RockStacker]

I had one before - unfortunately I had a dozen flame scallops in the tank too.
They use those long snouts to pick at the muscles at the base of the scallop's hinge. Once the muscle was torn, it was able to open the scallop and eat it.

 

[FishyReef]

Rock, did it mess with your corals at all? Cleaner shrimp (if you had any)?

 

[RockStacker]

It did not touch the corals, but I had all soft corals at the time.
I also had peppermint and skunk cleaner shrimps and those were ignored.

In my case it looks like it zeroed in on the scallops.