Winged's Tanks

A month or so ago, we were shopping at a LPS and were browsing their SW selection, when we saw one of these guys. I believe the scientific name is Acreichthys tomentosus. Because we'd had a problem with manjano anemones since we set up the tank (our peppermint shrimp have done a fabulous job at keeping the aiptasia away), and everything we tried to get rid of them failed, we bought one of these fish. At this point, the manjanos were quite numerous on one rock, so much so that we had refrained from putting any coral on that rock. While at the store, we asked if he would be any danger to our corals, and we were warned that he might try to eat the polyps of some corals. But we were quite desperate to get rid of the manjanoes, which had continued to increase in number, so we bought him. We brought the filefish home, acclimated him to our tank, and released him.

For the first several days, nothing changed. Then one morning we woke up to find a number of manjanoes gone. The next day, even more were gone. And the day after that, all the little anemones were gone and our filefish had a very full looking belly. He did his job very well.

Over the following couple weeks, he seemed to be doing quite well. He started to eat the pellet food the other fish got and seemed to be doing good. But last week we noticed that our waving hand was not looking good, and each morning, there would be several polyps gone. Because nothing else in our tank has changed, the only thing seems to be that the filefish is eating them. We will be returning him to the store and getting some more waving hand in his place.