Mislabeled Filefish?

goody

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Aptaisia have taken over my planted tank and refugium for my display tank. I wanted to use berghias as I have in the past, but none were available in my area and being pricey and with shipping costs, I decided to try a different route Peppermint shrimp are in my refugium and today I bought what was labeled as an Aptaisia eating filefish. After acclimating and putting it in my planted tank, I decided to look for more information on it. This filefish color is pretty green and has me thinking it's a radial filefish which is not known as an Aptaisia eater. Did my LFS get it wrong? Sounds like I need a matted filefish. Tried to get a photo but the green color doesn't really show.

PXL_20241014_033742865.jpg PXL_20241014_033739269.jpg
 

Tamberav

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Filefish can change color, including green :)
 

livinlifeinBKK

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After looking again, I do see that Biota has an aptaisia filefish that looks very similar to mine. Are there noticeable differences between a matted and radial?
Are you feeding it other foods? If so, it may have become accustomed to eating prepared foods before you bought it and now prefers prepared foods over aiptasia. Im not trying being sarcastic here in any way, but if you want to compare physical characteristics between the two filefish species, have you searched pictures online?
 

klc

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The filefish you posted a photo of is the correct one. Sometimes they will eat aiptasia and sometimes they wont. I will tell you that I have 2 in my sps display and there are zero aiptasia after a few weeks. They usually won't mow them down right away, they will pick at them casually until they are gone. If you have a planted tank, the filefish may eat your plants too, they will eat anything that tastes good to them. Daily nori on a clip will keep them well fed.
 
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goody

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Are you feeding it other foods? If so, it may have become accustomed to eating prepared foods before you bought it and now prefers prepared foods over aiptasia. Im not trying being sarcastic here in any way, but if you want to compare physical characteristics between the two filefish species, have you searched pictures online?
I just got it the other day but I'm not sure what the LFS was feeding it prior to my purchase. My post was not because it hasn't eaten any aptaisia yet but more because I thought it wasn't the correct type of "aptaisia -eating" filefish after I started looking at photos and reading more once I got home. It was an impulse buy as I was looking to eradicate my infestation of aptaisia so I trusted what was written on the tank the fish was in. I have looked at online photos but hearing how they change colors I was just seeking more information. The previous LFS I went to was able to inform me that the one Filefish they had was in stock was in fact not known for eating aptaisia when I thought all would eat them.
 

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