bristle worms as primary food for butterflies?

[homegrowncichlid]

I have a 65gallon reef and 38gallon refugium/sump underneath, full of small bristle worms and aptasia. When the lights go out, all the rocks are crawling with worms. I would even say one per square inch.
Do you think there's enough worm food to maintain a copperbanded or a long nose butterfly?

Currently have a 6-line wrasse who also eats worms, but does nothing for the aptasia. The wrasse also eats pepperment shrimps, so I'm trying to add the butterfly as a solution for both aptasia and bristle worms.

Since copperbandeds are hard to aclimate to new foods, I'm thinking, why bother? Let him forage naturally. I mean, how many worms does a butterfly need to eat a day? 5? 10? 20? If a butterfly eats 20 worms a day, then in theory, the worm population would never go down.

I'm adapting the "How big a tank/ how many pods does it take to feed a mandarin goby" idea.

 

[rookie07]

As far as I know, CB BF do not eat bristle worms.

 

[homegrowncichlid]

According to the articles I've read, they eat all worms including feather dusters and bristle. Here is one of the many references to butterflies and their prey.
http://www.reefsmagazine.com/forum/reefs-magazine/78104-reef-safe-butterflyfishes-matt-wandell.html

 

[skene]

if you could force the CB to eat the worms.. how long do you think it would take before it starves itself out.
a mandarin can nearly decimate a tank of all pods in just a few short weeks.... then starve itself if you cannot get it to eat anything else.
not a good thing to try and base your hypothesis on.

 

[homegrowncichlid]

well, in response to "forcing " the butterfly to eat worms, it's my understanding that worms are in their natural diet. I'm not trying to train a copperbanded to eat them. I assume they will eat them anyway and love doing it. According to another article I've read on wetwebmedia, in regards to acclimating a new butterfly,
it helps by placing an infested piece of live rock in QT with a butterfly. This acclimates it to it's new home, in that the live rock provides some natural foods, including the feather dusters, bristle worms, brittle stars, aptasia, etc. while getting it to eat prepared foods.

Now the second point is exactly the question I'm asking. Just how big of a bristle worm population does a tank need to support a single butterfly? When I say that there is a worm per square inch of rock, I mean there are literally thousands of bristle worms in my tank. The rocks are covered with them, and they all pop out about within an hour after lights go out, and especially after my norturnal reef feeding.

So even if a butterfly eats 10 worms a day, I don't think that would affect the worm population at all. Basically, I'm assuming he'll be foraging constantly, plucking out worms here and there. Unlike pods, plucking a worm, usually means getting only half of it out, so the other half regenerates anyway.
Now for nutritional value, I don't know how much a butterfly eats a day. Is a small bristle worm equal to a mysis shrimp? Can a 4" butterfly do well on a half cube of mysis a day? A full cube? Can we assume a fresh bristle worm has as much as, or more nutritional value as compared to a frozen mysis?

 

[Jzhou]

I'm with skene on this one. Even if you were able to force the butterflies to eat bristle worms, the question is how will you be able to get the butterfly from moderating itself night after night. In comparison to the mandarin example you gave, what mostly likely will happen is that the butterfly will eat all the worms that he sees as soon as possible. Much like how a mandarin would run out of food if their wasn't an area where the pods would be able to recover without being eaten, the butterfly would most likely end up starving to death. There are also many things that factors into growth. Age, water condition, living conditions, and stress levels all factor into growth rates. To theorize that because growth rate slowed there is a sign that food source is not very sound. Its a good hypothesis, but without further investigation, it should never be something offered as advice.

 

[Jzhou]

BTW Skene, Wasn't your avatar an animated one? I remember making a comment about Wondering How you got the guy to throw the other guy in sync.

 

[guri]

my copperbanded never eat brittles but feather dusters yes

 

[KathyC]

I have a 65gallon reef and 38gallon refugium/sump underneath, full of small bristle worms and aptasia. When the lights go out, all the rocks are crawling with worms. I would even say one per square inch.
Do you think there's enough worm food to maintain a copperbanded or a long nose butterfly?

Currently have a 6-line wrasse who also eats worms, but does nothing for the aptasia. The wrasse also eats pepperment shrimps, so I'm trying to add the butterfly as a solution for both aptasia and bristle worms.

Since copperbandeds are hard to aclimate to new foods, I'm thinking, why bother? Let him forage naturally. I mean, how many worms does a butterfly need to eat a day? 5? 10? 20? If a butterfly eats 20 worms a day, then in theory, the worm population would never go down.

I'm adapting the "How big a tank/ how many pods does it take to feed a mandarin goby" idea.

Is the 6 line the only other fish in the tank?
Do you plan to not feed the 6-line at all so the fish will have no other option but to pick at whatever is in the tank? What is you plan if the fish decides your corals taste better than the worms?
Keep in mind the long nose butterfly will feast on your pods, if you chose that fish.

If you have that many bristle worms in your tank, then one good suggestion would to be to cut back on what you are currently feeding and the population will die back to the amount of available leftover food (after your fish have eaten). It may take a little time, but it will happen if you feed within reason.

Aiptasia can be addressed in multiple ways although certain fish are better than others at clearing a tank, but again, most of those fish are likely to pick on certain corals as well, or you can try one of the manual methods.

IMO depending on fish to alleviate your worm issue by giving them no other choice but worms to eat will result in dead fish

 

[homegrowncichlid]

Well, a little back ground. My tank is stocked with a 4 tangs (3"-6" size), 4 chromis, 3 damsels and the 6-line wrasse. It's a heavy load, but with the denitrifier and the 38 gal sump/refugium, I have no water quality issues. Plus with my experience with the theory of "hyperdominance" from keeping cichlids, I can cleverly control the aggression between fish, though I wouldn't want to toss a firefish goby in there.

Currently I feed the reef 3 times a week with a slurry of ground up dryfood/phytoplankton/frozen shrimp. There is simply no way I can cut down on the feedings, given my lifestock load. The fish waste alone could feed an army of worms.
Even in my 30gal frag tank, which I barely feed at all, I mean literally, like 5-10 2mm sized NLS pellets twice a week to feed my 5 sexy shrimps, has a major infestation of bristle worms.
I think bristle worms are like roaches. Drop a crumb on the kitchen floor and it feeds 100 of them for a month. Drop a piece every day, and you'll have a never ending supply. And apstasia? forgetaboutit.

I'm just looking for a little predatory pressure to prevent the worms/apstasia from taking over their entire world. Eventually, after the 6-line wrasse dies of old age, this topic will be a non-issue since pepperment shrimps can be reintroduced to control apstasia, and a couple of my damsels do go for the exposed bristle worms.
It's just that currently, I buy 6-12 pepperments a year to control apstasia in the refugium, and I was thinking it'll be cheaper to get a butterfly instead.

From the feedback I'm getting, I'm assuming I would need a 100+ gallon reef to support a foraging butterfly naturally.
I just like the idea of:
How many pounds of live rock does it take to support a mandarin goby?
How many square feet of macro algae does it take to support a tang?
How many colonies/inches of SPS coral does it take to support a yellow clown goby?
micro brittlestars-harlequin shrimp?
the list goes on and on.

 

[rookie07]

I had a 120, and the CBBF would eventually die from starvation, i never got one to take to frozen.

Harley shrimp will not eat brittle stars, regardless of size.

 

[homegrowncichlid]

Thanks for the imput. I guess what I'll do this spring, is when I see a nice smallish copperbanded or long nose butterfly got to be less than 3" in size, I'll drop him in my frag tank and see how he does with the worms/pods in there. I'll begin training it onto other foods. Since he'll be the only fish in there, I'll see how he does and then after a while, make a decision on whether to move him into the main tank or return/trade him in.

Tough decisions.

 

[rookie07]

Sounds like your best bet. Good thinking.

 

[NYreefNoob]

even if it starts to eat frozen 99% it wont live, this is a fish i have tried several times and had them eating frozen as well and still starved out

 

[homegrowncichlid]

Starved out while eatting frozen? hmm, maybe it's metabolism is just too fast and it needs to be constantly eating. Then theres no way for it to get nearly enough food foraging in a small tank. I'm going to have to rethink this whole idea. Unless I start farming worms and aptasia, but that's against the whole idea. Guess, I'll take a look at those aptasia nudibranch -berghia and something else for the worms.

 

[silverface]

Also most fish sleep at night so getting the cb to eat at night would be extremely tough since the bristleworms only come out at night.....Ain't that right Hurricanez?:smash:

 

[James983]

even if it starts to eat frozen 99% it wont live, this is a fish i have tried several times and had them eating frozen as well and still starved out

+1
I had one over a year who ate everything I fed, he even out competed my Tangs but one day proof DEAD.

 

[nycdominicanreef]

You can try an arrow crab, i have see them actively hunt and kill bristle worms, very entertaining

 

[homegrowncichlid]

Well, gave in and picked up an active 3.5+ inch copper banded butterfly two weeks ago and placed it in my frag tank, where he ate all the micro feather dusters up in a single day. (It took about a year to grow all the dusters in there.) Well, it had ich, so I've moved him into another QT with cupramine and am feeding live black worms now.

Seems to me they have very small stomachs, as they can only eat 2 or 3 black worms at a time. Then it ignores all the worms I throw in for half a day, and then it eats another 2 worms. (Thus, their eating habits are more like dainty anthias as opposed to damsels, which can seemingly gorge its entire body weight at a time).

This difference in stomach/gut capacity may be why they are so hard to keep, as they can only eat a few pieces of food during feeding time, but not enough to get them through the day. Thus successfull butterfly keepers probably have stocked, life-rock tanks, full of critters from which butterflies can forage through out the day.

On the positive side of this observation, if they do adapt to foraging for and eating bristle worms, (which he has tasted and spat out twice, along with ampipods, which seem too crunchy for him), I don't see the possibility of him gorging on and wiping out the entire worm population, as previously hypothesized by other in previous posts.

After QT, I'm going to release him into the 30-gallon sump/refugium, where he can adapt to the live food in my system while I can still target feed him. After that, in a couple of months, I'll move him into the main tank, where he'll have a fighting chance of competing with the other fish.

 

[d5332]

I have been researching this trying to help a friend find a solution to his infestation type of bristle worm population and some aptasia.

I am wondering if in your research you came across any information regarding fish and shrimp only going after aptasia and worms as a very last resort which means you need to starve the tank in order to attempt to force the shrimp or fish to seek alternative meals.

I also read that if successful at getting shrimp and fish to consume aptasia and worms, that typically they will eat the new offspring only, adult size aptasia and worms will remain.

I have not been able to find a solution for him yet that will work 100%.

I did read that there is a proven nudibranch that exclusively feeds on aptasia and will rid your a heavily infested tank in a couple of months, faster if you buy several of them BUT will starve to death after it helps you eat every single one, how long will that be, who knows, you have a sump and tank and maybe overflows to clean up so that can be many months.

I still have not read enough on the Berghia nudibranch to recommend it to my friend but I am continuing to research it because it seems like the best chance at ridding a tank of aptasia, an organism that solely feeds on aptasia.

As for the bristle worms, I am leaning towards a solution of recommending a trap for him. I've read a good size trap can catch tens of worms per night. A month of setting traps should bring the numbers down significantly and maintenance after that.

Again, still reading up on this and I have not decided on anything specific just yet.