opinions on longnose butterfly??
 

are these guys reefsafe? i've read they are relatively hardy and don't nip at corals (individual dependent i'm sure).


opinions? experience?

I have had one in the past and am going to be purchasing one again for my current tank soon. My only experience is with the one I had but it did not mess w/ any corals, snails, clams, shrimp, etc. It only ate feather dusters (large expesive store-bought and mini liverock hitchhikers) and it ate almost all prepared frozen foods. I never saw it touch flake or cyclopeeze.

When I had mine it was in a tank with the first Atlantic Blue Tang I had. The Atlantic Blues can be quite snotty and the longnose stuck up for itself just fine. They flare up their top fin and point their nose down which aims the "spikes" at the obnoxious bully.

It depends on the fish, and I wanna say the species as well. I had a flavissimus (as opposed to longirostris) and it would pick on things all day here and there, it never really did any damage, but of course I did not have any large dusters, anemones, or clams at the time.

In any case I think if you keep it well fed, it should reduce the picking it does on prized corals (in this case my sps)

hope this helps
Chris