Last time I impulse buy...

Earlier this week we stopped by a not-so-local FS just to browse around. Ended up taking home a few corals and I saw they had some Bannerfishes. Came home and read on them and found that they were not reef safe (awww. ), and after a bit more, found the second species that IS reef safe (yay!). So today we went by the LFS we usually frequent and saw that they had some Black and White Butterflies listed on their tanks as "Schooling Bannerfish" (which is the common name of the reef safe one). So I asked if he knew which species he had in the tank and if he could provide me with the Latin name for the one he had. He said that it was Heniochus diphreutes; that being the reef safe one. So I snatched it up since it's been our experience that he generally knows what he's talking about and has never sold us a sick fish/invert (actually outright refused to sell us an urchin that hadn't moved in a couple days and pointed us to another store).

Anyway, long story short, we got it home and the more I try to 100% identify it, the bigger my headache gets. The definition in the last black bar points to Heniochus acuminatus (non reef safe), and the separation in coloring on the anal fin says the same as far as I can tell. Then we stumbled across posts that say to count the dorsal spines. So we did and unless we counted wrong (which is entirely likely), it has the proper number of spines for a H. diphreutes.

So, I give up. Here are some terrible pictures of blinding my poor fish with the camera flash trying to get him still enough to actually SEE what he looks like.

So which do I have?

I'm unsure if the LFS will actually take him back or not (which I would think he would seeing as we just got him today but who knows) if he happens to be the wrong one. He's been picking things off the rocks but hasn't come anywhere near the corals yet.


Thanks so much in advance. I've learned my lesson, I swear. o.o

 

Ooooo....you in trouble...lol I don't know much about them, but when you take it back, just tell him that you read that he is not reef safe and that he was picking at your corals. Put the guilt on him for selling you the wrong fish and insist he exchange it for you.

 

Well he hasn't touched them YET, which makes me more nervous than if I saw him chowing down on them already. At least then I would just remove him and stick him in the QT until tomorrow. But if it IS the reef safe variety, then I wouldn't want to stress him for nothing. He settled in fairly quick and is a nice, personable fish so I'm really gunning for him to be the one I want.

 

Well, good luck buddy!

 

Yes good luck. It may very well be reef safe at least for now. Once it settles in though it may be a different story. Keep an eye on it!

 

He follows the Foxface around no matter where he goes like he's trying to school with him or something. It's adorable. I think at this point whatever I read about the reef safe species I'm just TRYING to attach to the one we have because I really want it to be safe, but they say that H. Diphreutes is more "gregarious" behavior-wise than it's coral-munching cousin. I would definitely call him gregarious.

 

Well, on further inspection, I don't believe I have EITHER species.

I thought there was only two species of Butterflies that look like this. Turns out there's another. H. Singularius looks EXACTLY like this one and was actually easy to make an ID once I saw a picture. Defining feature being the complete black band around the eyes and the shape of the anal fin.

ALMOST a sigh of relief but I can't find a whole ton of information out there. Anyone know if THESE are reef safe?