Copperband Butterfly Primer

[tasandkrs]

I had this guy for over two years until I took down my tank. I never had any problems with it.

[plancton]

So CBB likes red worms?, frozen, dried or what?

[tasandkrs]

Mine seemed to like frozen mysis shrimp

[Laddy]

As PaulB pointed out, they eat worms in the wild.

Some people have had success feeding them black worms. I cannot say, both CBBs never made it out of my QT. But I'm going to attempt another when LA gets in the ones from Australia.

[plancton]

And if its blackworms what presentation?, I can´t get live ones

[Paul B]

I only get live worms, I don't know if they come frozen or any other way. Bloodworms are not worms. The fish may eat them but I doubt they have much nutrition being beetle larvae and not really salt water fish food. They would be lacking in oils

[sunfish11]

I have tried feeding mine live blackworms but it doesn't eat them. Only mysis, brine, tubeworms, aiptasia,and pods.

Lisa

[Laddy]

But the most important thing is getting one which eats anything.

I really believe if you make the CBB the center of the universe in the tank, the poor history of this fish will start to improve.

[plancton]

I bought one that eats sweet water´s zooplankton, but I´m keeping it in the fuge, as I don´t know how difficult would it be for it to get its food in the 175gal, that´s why I designed the feeder, it hasn´t eaten from it yet though.

[mflamb]

I'm not sure you will find one that eats anything, but if you find one that eats agressively, you can train it to eat other stuff. I food train all of my fish in QT before they make it to the display.

If you soak pellets, flakes or whatever in something that the CBB already eats, such as mysis, and feed about 10 of the small pellets soaked with only a few mysis, the CBB will start eating the pellets. Be patient and don't starve the CBB if he is slow to start on the pellets.

[Laddy]

Originally posted by mflamb
I'm not sure you will find one that eats anything, but if you find one that eats agressively, you can train it to eat other stuff. I food train all of my fish in QT before they make it to the display.

No, I mean if you can find a CBB which eats AT LEAST one thing, then you are way ahead of the game. Then you can attempt to wean them off of hard to get items such as black worms.

[mflamb]

Oh, I understand. Yeah I agree.

[plancton]

MY CBB has stopped eating, ever since I bought it I never really saw him go for the zooplankton that was eating at the store, I saw it with my own eyes.

I see he´s rather looking in the rockwork, its a bit of worry, I think it will die, but why?, I saw him eating zooplankton, I bought the same brand and knew from other people that saw it at the store that he was eating it.

[michellejy]

You need to try feeding it something else. There are a lot of great suggestions in this thread for getting them to eat, even if it's not the food you prefer to feed him right now. There is no reason the fish has to starve without attempting some other options like live clam, oyster, mysis, etc.

[DJBoy98]

Got my CBB to eat live black worms after 2 days of him grazing the rocks when I first got him. He doesn't seem to eat anything else besides the worms and atapsia. Any good suggestions to ween him to mysis? I tried mini-mysis but he only targets the worms still. I have 2 LFS that sells it but are they good for them?

[mflamb]

[Brandon M]

Here is my Copperband...I have had her for about 1 month. She is around 4"-5" and eats PE mysis like a champ!

[Laddy]

Nice vid mflamb. Beautiful fish.

Brandon, where did you get the CBB?

[hawkfishman]

best left in ocean more than 1/2 collected die!!

[michellejy]

Originally posted by hawkfishman
best left in ocean more than 1/2 collected die!!

Unfortunately, I believe a lot more saltwater fish than we realize die, and I don't specifically mean the copperband butterfly. How many people watched Finding Nemo and put a baby clown in an uncycled tank? How many fish do you think die in transport before they ever make it to a retail store? How many people have you read posts from here on RC who talk about how their new fish is starving/sick/getting attacked by another fish? Even the fish that aren't considered difficult to keep can fall in the hands of an irresponsible reef keeper. It's awful, and it really does bother me every time I consider that a fish was removed from the ocean only to die a week or two later.

I think the copperband can be successfully kept, if people are willing to put the time and effort into it. That's the purpose of this thread, not to say they are easy and everyone should have one.

Oh, and although they all look pretty much the same, here is mine. My husband calls him Thong because he is skinny and likes to go in cracks.

[Paul B]

It is our fault that fish die prematurely in our tanks.
The fish I am sure wants to live but if we don't feed it what it is supposed to eat or house it in a tank that simulates it's habitat in the sea and has relitively similar water parameters.
How mayn people on here have moorish Idols and are thrilled because they eat clams and flakes, two foods Idols do not eat in the sea. Get a good book and find out what these animals eat and don't get it if you can't take care of it. I don't have problems with copperbands but I have followed them in the sea and learned they eat worms. They will eat all sorts of things but their system was designed to have some worms. I have also followed moorish Idols, they eat sponge, I have never seen them eat anything else on the reefs. They are another fish that will eat anything but if all they eat is sponge, they probably need it.
We also put herbifores in tanks devoid of algae. A vegetable diet contains very little nutrition which is the reason they graze all day non stop. They will eat mysis, flakes, brine shrimp etc but they need algae. Of course they can live a few years on the wrong diet, so can we, but those fish should live almost 20 years.
Too many fish we are slowly starving even though they seem fat.
If we ate chocolate chip cookies every day we would also be fat, but I doubt we will live long.
Anyway back to copperbands. They have small mouths and need to eat a few times a day. They should have some worms in their diet preferably every day, I feed live black worms to them every day for at least one meal. Worms are very high in vitamin A.
Copperbabds seem to need this as many fish do.
The diet of most reef fish is whole baby fish which are very numerous on a healthy reef. If you dive in the tropics and you just lay on the bottom for a while you will notice thousands of tiny fish. These form the food chain for almost all fish.
Not pieces of shrimp, clam and squid but whole fish. The reason for that is because vitamin A along with Omega oils are stored in the liver. Some fishes liver is a quarter of it's weight. There is very little vitamin A in the muscle of fish, squid or clam.

[DJBoy98]

Great info!

I guess I'm stucking going to the LFS every couple of weeks for live black worms. Just about everyone eats those buggers in my tank.

[Paul B]

They are the best food their is, just don't feed only that or your fish will want nothing else. Feed them something else first.

[Brandon M]

Originally posted by Laddy
Brandon, where did you get the CBB?

I got my Copperband from a fellow reefer who's tank was getting too small for her.

[discusone]

Paul B,

How do we know "fish live for 20 years"?. I'm not arguing with you,just how do the ocean biologists know that a CBB,or any ornamental fish lives that long?Has any body done a tagging on butterflyfish,or dwarf angels?Then recovered the same fish 20 years later?