Got a fishkeeping question? PFK’s crack team of aquatics experts are on hand to answer whatever you need to know...
THE EXPERTS
DR PETER BURGESS
Peter is our disease expert. Send questions his way if you have pathogen problems.
BOB MEHEN
Bob is a master of fishkeeping general knowledge and community tanks.
JEREMY GAY
Jeremy is more than adept when it comes to cichlids, goldfish and marine species.
JORDAN STIRRAT
Aquascaping prodigy Jordan is the man to go to for all your planting issues.
MAX PEDLEY
Max is like a living, breathing search engine. Cichlids are his speciality.
NEALE MONKS
Neale is the man for your technical queries. He loves brackish fish, too.
DAVE HULSE
Dave is a consultant for the Tetra Advisory Board and a research fellow at Keele University.
MARINE
Is there a reef-safe butterflyfish?
My reef tank holds just shy of 400 litres and is stocked with a regal tang, two tiny clownfish and a Flymo blenny. Please could you recommend a butterflyfish that will suit this set up? I have some hermits and a couple of Turbo snails with mushroom soft corals and some Xenia. The tank has been set up for four months.
JOE CAMPBELL
JEREMY SAYS: There is only one species of butterflyfish that I’d recommend for a reef aquarium, and that’s the copperband, Chelmon rostratus. As beautiful as they are, most, if not all, butterflyfish will eat coral polyps, but the copperband is the safest and would suit a tank of your size too.
The copperband is not without its issues, however. While it is relatively reef-safe and is widely used for the control of Aiptasia pest anemones, it may still eat fanworms, clams and some corals, and although these fish feed in the aquarium and readily accept frozen foods, many waste away at the 6-12-month mark.
Only choose a copperband that you have seen feeding in the store, quarantine it when you get home, and try your hardest to get it to take dry foods. I know one owner who managed to get his to feed on Easy Reefs Masstick paste, which he pushed into a short pipe that his copperband could then poke its long beak into. This also prevented the food being eaten by the other fish.
TROPICAL
Can I control these populations?
I have a Fluval Roma 240 aquarium in which I have had an explosion of shrimp—and there are hundreds.
