🐠 Banded Butterflyfish (Chaetodon striatus)
Marine Not-Reef-Safe Butterflyfish • White Body With Bold Black Vertical Bands • Genuine Atlantic & Caribbean Species • Intermediate Marine Fish
 
📋 The Banded Butterflyfish , also known as the Butterbun or Portuguese Butterfly, has a genuinely classic, striking pattern — a predominantly white, disk-shaped body crossed by three bold black vertical bands, with black pelvic fins.
Native to the Western Atlantic, from Massachusetts down to Rio de Janeiro, including the Gulf of Mexico, Caribbean Sea, and Bermuda, this species is genuinely a real geographic outlier compared to most of our Indo-Pacific butterflyfish stock. In the wild, it's often seen forming plankton-feeding groups of up to 20 individuals, and genuinely sometimes joins in cleaning other reef fish that visit the group.
We want to be upfront and correct a common misconception: this species is not reef safe. Its natural diet genuinely includes coral polyps, zoanthids, tubeworms, and polychaete worms, and it will pick at both hard and soft corals in a reef tank. It does best in a genuinely fish-only or invertebrate-free setup with plenty of hiding places, and benefits from being fed at least three times daily given its naturally varied, grazing-based diet.
 
⚪⚫ Highlights
🎨 White Body With Bold Black Bands: A genuinely classic, iconic butterflyfish pattern
🌍 Genuine Atlantic & Caribbean Species: A real geographic outlier from our typical Indo-Pacific stock
🧽 Genuinely Social: Forms plankton-feeding groups and occasionally cleans other fish in the wild
⚠️ Not Reef Safe: Will pick at hard and soft corals, zoanthids, and worms
🍽️ Genuinely Frequent Feeder: Benefits from at least three feedings daily