pacific double-saddle butterfly

[silvernblue]

Chaetodon ulietensis
Common name: pacific double-saddle butterfly

I am wondering. Would this fish be eating my coralline algae?? My algae seems to be diminishing. He is constantly picking at my rocks. He did eat my anenome. I think it was just one of those annoying glass anenomes.

Anyone have experience with this one??

Micheal

 

[AF Founder]

Chaetodon ulietensis
Common name: pacific double-saddle butterfly

I am wondering. Would this fish be eating my coralline algae?? My algae seems to be diminishing. He is constantly picking at my rocks. He did eat my anenome. I think it was just one of those annoying glass anenomes.

Anyone have experience with this one??

Micheal

Michael,

Very unlikely that your butterfly fish will eat coralline algae. It will go after anemones, large polyp corals, small inverts, worms of all kinds, etc. It doesn't have the mouth structure to scrape away coralline algae

 

[silvernblue]

Could it be my limpets? I have not noticed a decline before the past few weeks and I have had tree of them in my 55 for over a year. Two of the limpets are the plain shelled keyhole variety. The other is an odd one with a orange soft covering over his shell that extends to a skirt around the bottom of the shell.

Any ideas??

 

[AF Founder]

Could it be my limpets? I have not noticed a decline before the past few weeks and I have had tree of them in my 55 for over a year. Two of the limpets are the plain shelled keyhole variety. The other is an odd one with a orange soft covering over his shell that extends to a skirt around the bottom of the shell.

Any ideas??

Michael,

Many limpets will eat coralline algae, but rarely kill it. They just scape off the surface. A fall off in coralline algae growth can be caused by any number of factors; eg., change in light, nutrients, current, water quality.

 

[AF Founder]

Could it be my limpets? I have not noticed a decline before the past few weeks and I have had tree of them in my 55 for over a year. Two of the limpets are the plain shelled keyhole variety. The other is an odd one with a orange soft covering over his shell that extends to a skirt around the bottom of the shell.

Any ideas??

Michael,

Some more technical info:

Abstract. The territorial gardening limpet, Patella cochlear, occurs along the South and southern West coasts of South Africa, while one of its primary prey, the encrusting coralline alga, Spongites yendoi, occurs much further north along the West coast. This has presented the ideal situation to develop and test hypotheses concerning the importance of grazing in the ecology of encrusting coralline algae along a geographic gradient.

Variation in the abundance of P. cochlear has various implications for the morphology and ecology of S. yendoi. The coralline comprises the major portion (roughly 85 %) of the limpets diet while fleshy algae (Gelidium micropterum) comprise roughly 7 %. Grazing by the limpet reduces the thallus thickness of the coralline producing a relatively smooth coralline; in the absence of herbivory, or under low grazing frequencies, the coralline is thick and highly protuberant. Grazing weakens S. yendoi's interference (overgrowth) competitive ability and also reduces the fecundity of the coralline. Manipulation experiments support the observed geographic trends.

The intimate herbivore-coralline association between P. cochlear and S. yendoi shows characteristics of a facultative mutualistic association. By reducing its thallus thickness, grazing by P. cochlear increases the coralline's lateral growth rate; thinner forms of the coralline grow significantly faster (0.58 ± 0.24 mm.month-1) than thicker forms (0.10 ± 0.02 mm.month-1). An increased lateral growth results in the thinner form of the coralline being very abundant on South and southern West coasts occupying as much as 79 % of all surfaces in the lower eulittoral zone; there is thus a positive correlation between limpet and coralline percentage cover. Spongites yendoi's success at exploitative (faster growth rate) competition is thus enhanced by the higher grazing frequencies of P. cochlear. Preliminary nutrient analyses reveal that the coralline is equally high in organic content per volume as compared with the limpet's garden of G. micropterum and possibly also Herposiphonia heringii.

 

[AF Founder]

Michael,

The info just provided came from:

Geographic studies on the interaction between the limpet, Patella cochlear, and the encrusting coralline alga Spongites yendoi.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



By Gavin W. Maneveldt & Derek W. Keats


Botany Department,
University of the Western Cape,
P. Bag X17, Bellville 7535
South Africa

 

[silvernblue]

Ok, Interesting info. Do you think it applies to the enclosed environment of the tank? I do see the coralline all over my rocks still but it is a lighter color. So, maybe the scraping off is what is happening and it will return stronger. Is there anything I can do to ensure it will be stronger?

Any additives or measurements I should add/take??

Micheal