Fishes eating majano anemone and aiptasia (1 Viewer)

[fishcraze]

For those who are fighting w/ majano anemone and aiptasia, these may be the answers for you:
- Aiptasia eating file fish (also has many other names too as green filefish, britletail, etc..)
- Emperor angel

My tank has an outbreak of majano anemones recently so I went searching for fishes to control those pests couple weeks ago. First I bought a juv emperor angel since I knew from my previous experience that they eat m.a. My last emperor angel would eat m.a like crazy but I had to get rid of him since he also picked on my zoas and scolymias after the m.a was gone. I decided to get another emperor angel this time to let him clean up the m.a and will catch him out and sell him off like last time...
So after getting the angel (from Fishland), I swung by T&T and saw this filefish labeled as aips eating ff. I thought if it eats aipt, it may also eat m.a. So I bought it also and put both of them into my frag tank to monitor them first.

The filefish turns out to be a big hit since he's really a m.a eating machine! I had a zoa colony with at least 10+ m.a on it and he cleaned them up in less than 10 mins! My juv emperor seems to only eat the tiny ones and leaves the big ones alone - maybe b/c it's still small (the last one I had would eat m.a of any sizes just like the filefish).

Drawbacks? Yes, there is one main drawbacks that these fishes may also go after other stuffs in our reef tank too like zoa, soft corals...

I did an online search on the filefish info yesterday and saw people commenting that he could eat some soft corals that look like glass anemones like duncan, xenia, etc... And then there was my answer! I noticed that most of the xenia in my frag tank was gone or badly damaged (not open anymore..) in the last week or two but didn't know why since I didn't see the file fish touched them in person. But now I'm sure it was him since he did hang around the xenia area quite a bit.
However, I have also tried to put some acan, some zoa colonies along with other frags in the frag tank (like sps, toadstool, green torch, blasto, etc..) to test them and so far they have left these corals alone :? (but i'm sure not to put my duncan colony in there to test the filefish though

Anyway, just want to share some of my experience that may be helpful to some of you.

You can find more info on the file fish here:

http://www.wetwebmedia.com/marine/inverts/cnidaria/anthozoa/aiptasia/aip&filefaqs.htm

http://www.manhattanreefs.com/forum/fish/56984-green-filefish-aiptasia-solution-reef-wrecker.html

I'm not sure if other people had experience about the emperor angels eating m.a.

 

[ReefNoob]

Cool,that's good to know.
LMK if you run out of MA or aptaisia to keep your fish well fed;I have quite a few in my tank and would like to get rid of it as well

 

[d2mini]

Wow, maybe you can rent him out to other marsh members for a small fee.

 

[decimal]

u know craze has a pimpin tank so that should work out well

 

[GotFrogs]

I am about to order a Juvenile Emperor Angelfish but how do you think my red bubble tip anemones will fair? I have lots of majano and am ready to get rid of them!

 

[GotFrogs]

I ordered a small Emperor angel for my 120 gallon majano breeding ground. It will be here tomorrow. I will keep you posted on how he does.

 

[fishcraze]

The angel won't mess with the bubble tip anemones - based on my experience. And if you feed him well, he probably won't mess w/ your corals either.
The last one I had, he only started messing with zoas and meaty corals about the time I cut back on feeding my fishes due to an algea issue.. He was completely reef safe for almost 9 months (except eating the majano anemone), so I didn't think he'd mess w/ my corals when I cut back on the feeding.

The nice thing about the emperor angels is that they are pretty aggressive in eating food of our hands, so it's pretty easy to catch them out with a fish trap. That was the reason I took the risk to put him to my main tank. I also plan to put the current one to the main tank once I can train him to eat a little more agressively to ensure that I can catch him out later if needed.

On the other hand, the file fish is very shy and very slow in eating so I would have a hard time to get him fed in the main tank with all those fast and hungry tangs in there. The risk for him to turn to eating corals (after the m. anemones are gone) are higher, and it's also less likey for me to be able to catch such a shy fish in a 220 gal tank! Therefore, I have been moving small rocks/corals infested with the m.a from the main tank to the frag tank every couple days to let him clean them up. I have enough of these m.a on these rocks that would last him at least couple months It's also easier to feed him dry flakes & mysis in my frag tank with only 3 fishes.

 

[GotFrogs]

The emperor angel is dong great and all of my other fish are playing nice! I was concerned about the purple tang and flame angel but they all seem to like each other.
The emperor angel is only about 2.5 inches long. How big do you think he needs to be to go after the majano anemones? They are so much bigger than his mouth.

 

[fishcraze]

My last one was more agressive toward the maj ane when he was ~3.5-4" and in the transition to the adult state.. but you never know, yours may start eat them sooner. Just give him some time. If he is agressive in eating any food you put in , that's a good sign.