Lined Butterflyfish

Lined Butterflyfish

The Lined Butterflyfish, Chaetodon lineolatus, also known as the Coralfishes, Line Butterflyfish, Lined Butterfly, New-moon Coralfish, Spot-nape Butterflyfish. The Lined Butterflyfish has a perfect amalgamation of elegant appearance and bold personality, and is accented with a black eye spot high up on the back half of the dorsal fin.  This is the largest Butterflyfish of the  genus Chaetodon, it can reach a size of 11.5 inches, and should be kept in a tank no less than 150 gallons, if kept individually and no less than 185 gallons in kept in a pair or group.  If you wish to keep a group then we advise you to give them a plenty of space with a cleverly decorated aquarium, and introduce all of them at a time. Although, the Lined Butterflyfish lives peacefully with other inhabitants just by ignoring them, but  is aggressive and territorial with other butterflyfish. They require a thick sand bed, rockworks so that the Lined Butterflyfish can freely inhabits the reef crevices, and on sand. The Lined Butterflyfish often associates with foraging goatfishes, which tends to disturb the substrate, on which the worms get exposed and attacked by the Lined Butterflyfish with relish. The Lined Butterflyfish is one of the more sensitive Butterflyfishes and is only recommended for advanced marine aquarists.  It is not  considered reef safe, since it is mostly found foraging among the coral rubble and is known to eat  the coral’s tips, coral polyps and Mushroom anemones, Glass anemones (Aiptasia), tubeworms, but also on small invertebrates, clam mantles and algae. The Threadfin Butterfly is an omnivore and mainly feeds on filamentous algae, as well as tears pieces off its invertebrate prey, especially soft corals, worms, anemones, and hard corals. Try to offer a varied diet of meaty foods such as Mysis and Brine shrimp, frozen meaty marine foods such as chopped Squid, Clam, and Shrimp, as well as Zooplankton, Macroalgae and Microalgae. The Lined Butterflyfish aslo requires feeding several times a day, especially when newly added. But they will graze on algae found on the rocks inbetween feedings