Here is mine eating dinner a few minutes ago. Yes my wrasse are pretty much pets also.
Adding a copperband butterfly
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Two Gay Reefers
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So do they eat any type of clams?
I love when you post a new video of him!
Most CBBs will nip at ornamental clams (exs. Derasa, Maxima). They also love to eat littleneck clams & black mussels from the fishmonger.
Shaun Sweeney
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Interested to hear about the black worms. My CBB was fine with the yellow tang as they had grown up together. Lost him and failed at my attempt to introduce another.
Elleuckyreefs
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Live blackworms and then mysis always worked for me. It takes time and many feedings. I kept with anthias so he was always fed. Had great luck with one for over a year until marine velvet killed every last fish in my tank. Trying again with new one. Seems promising
Whisker Biscuit
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I wish you luck. My yellow tang was spawned from Satan and made quick work of a CBB I added a few weeks ago to try and take care of aptasia.
I've had my copperband for over 2 years now. My tank is 100gallon as well with 2 clownfish, a purple dottyback, 1 springer damsel, a rabbit fish, 1 yellow tang, 1 tamarin wrasse, 1 algae blenny and 6 lyretail anthias. So, your copperband should have no issue with your current fish apart from your yellow tang.
My previous yellow tang had to come out, the copperband would have had no chance of surviving if I kept him in. It was a hard decision to make but I'm happy I made it. Make sure your copperband is bigger than the yellow tang otherwise he latter will bully the copperband and prevent him from eating.
Regarding feeding mine only eat mysis, brine shrimps, clams (frozen, cooked and fresh one) two other friends of mine have a CCB as well and one only eat frozen mysis and frozen clams and the other one only eat mussels. If your new fish doesn't eat one type of clams try to give him something else.
I feed my fish 2 cubes of frozen in the morning (brine, mysis etc) and 2 clams in the evening, they all go for the clams.
When it comes to eating aiptasia, my tank was infested but he didn't eat them at the beginning. I even thought he was not even looking at them, but i now have a tank that visually cleared from aiptasia, wouldn't say the same about my sump tho. So my point is not to expect them to get rid of your aiptasia issue from day one.
I don't find copperband prone to any sickness, unless not fed properly I'm guessing. Oh and make sure your fish mouth isn't damaged when you buy it. Check for any damage skin as well. If your LFS allows you, pay for the fish and get them to keep it for 2 weeks for you. Go there twice and ask to see him feed. He should go for the food and not swim there looking at the fish and tasting one or two.
Copperband are really shy fish at the beginning, but once settled in he will have no problem with wrestling for a bit of food.
Good luck with your new fish.
My previous yellow tang had to come out, the copperband would have had no chance of surviving if I kept him in. It was a hard decision to make but I'm happy I made it. Make sure your copperband is bigger than the yellow tang otherwise he latter will bully the copperband and prevent him from eating.
Regarding feeding mine only eat mysis, brine shrimps, clams (frozen, cooked and fresh one) two other friends of mine have a CCB as well and one only eat frozen mysis and frozen clams and the other one only eat mussels. If your new fish doesn't eat one type of clams try to give him something else.
I feed my fish 2 cubes of frozen in the morning (brine, mysis etc) and 2 clams in the evening, they all go for the clams.
When it comes to eating aiptasia, my tank was infested but he didn't eat them at the beginning. I even thought he was not even looking at them, but i now have a tank that visually cleared from aiptasia, wouldn't say the same about my sump tho. So my point is not to expect them to get rid of your aiptasia issue from day one.
I don't find copperband prone to any sickness, unless not fed properly I'm guessing. Oh and make sure your fish mouth isn't damaged when you buy it. Check for any damage skin as well. If your LFS allows you, pay for the fish and get them to keep it for 2 weeks for you. Go there twice and ask to see him feed. He should go for the food and not swim there looking at the fish and tasting one or two.
Copperband are really shy fish at the beginning, but once settled in he will have no problem with wrestling for a bit of food.
Good luck with your new fish.
maroun.c
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Ive acclimated and trained a few of those to eat aptasias and hand feed and here are a few observations:
- they are difficult fish so careful pick in lfs is key. Need to chose one that looks alert, picking on things in the tank, has no signs of ich, is breathing well and not showing signs of flashing, scratching or hyperventilating ... A specimen thats eating in lfs is always a plus.
- most come with external/internal parasites and not really plumb fish due to lack of feeding in chain of custody till they reach hobbyists.
- These fish have a prooven record of not making it long time so training to feed prepared foods and soaking with vitamins is key. Deworming is a must.
-they can be finicky to feed so a mature introduction tank is a must. Mine has a sand bed, live rocks with algea and aptasia on. Has lots of microlife for the fish to nibble on. I load it with featherdusters from sump. Any CBB will nip on those and that helps bring back the nipping behavior. Ive sliced these open and the worms in them are rather large and i guess full of proteins
- i try to feed all sorts of food and if fish doesnt take to those i mix mysis soaked in vitamins in the feather dusters. This usually gets the fish nipping at them. Dont have access to live black worms but usually i manage to get all CBB to eat. If not bloodworms have helped. These are not nutritious so i only use to get the fish picking at them and then mix other feozen foods with them. Soaking in vitamins helps a bit as well.
-they also like to nip at food with their long pointed mouth. So squeezing a half clam or mysis in rocks helps.
I try to avoid using clams as i fear it might entice them to nip at my clams. No warranty that they want nor that they will if offered clams... Its just my OCD i guess.
-after that i mix pellets with mysis and usually they start taking to pellets.
-its important to make sure these fish have an advantage over other eating machines in the tank (ie tangs ) so i train them to hand feedIng or to feeding from a DIY feeder that other fish cant reach in to get the food (will find and post a video)
-once fish is eating and starts gaining weight i run 2 cycles of prazi and also mix prazi with food. Ive had rare cases where prazi cut the apetite of the fish and many will spit food with prazi a few times before getting used to the taste. But all fish have come back to normal eating after few days.
-if theres any signs of flukes i do a FW dip to confirm its flukes and treat more with prazi and do a fw dip again before moving to tank to make sure no residual flukes are there.
- i cut down on feeding for a couple days a week to entice the fish to nip at aptasia in the intro tank. Might also add a clam and few zoas tonobserve for nipoing (no guarantee it wont happen when in tank) or move to my cube to observe for nipping.
Ive traimed many of those and gave many to friend reefers with aptasia issues. Admit that with all this most faded between 6-12 months and died even when they were aggressively feeding. One lived for around 2 yrs in a friend tank. Another one cleaned up a mega infestation of featherdusters and some aptasia in my tank but still faded few months later where it lost weight till it died.
Amazing fish unfortunately not so positive for long term success
- they are difficult fish so careful pick in lfs is key. Need to chose one that looks alert, picking on things in the tank, has no signs of ich, is breathing well and not showing signs of flashing, scratching or hyperventilating ... A specimen thats eating in lfs is always a plus.
- most come with external/internal parasites and not really plumb fish due to lack of feeding in chain of custody till they reach hobbyists.
- These fish have a prooven record of not making it long time so training to feed prepared foods and soaking with vitamins is key. Deworming is a must.
-they can be finicky to feed so a mature introduction tank is a must. Mine has a sand bed, live rocks with algea and aptasia on. Has lots of microlife for the fish to nibble on. I load it with featherdusters from sump. Any CBB will nip on those and that helps bring back the nipping behavior. Ive sliced these open and the worms in them are rather large and i guess full of proteins
- i try to feed all sorts of food and if fish doesnt take to those i mix mysis soaked in vitamins in the feather dusters. This usually gets the fish nipping at them. Dont have access to live black worms but usually i manage to get all CBB to eat. If not bloodworms have helped. These are not nutritious so i only use to get the fish picking at them and then mix other feozen foods with them. Soaking in vitamins helps a bit as well.
-they also like to nip at food with their long pointed mouth. So squeezing a half clam or mysis in rocks helps.
I try to avoid using clams as i fear it might entice them to nip at my clams. No warranty that they want nor that they will if offered clams... Its just my OCD i guess.
-after that i mix pellets with mysis and usually they start taking to pellets.
-its important to make sure these fish have an advantage over other eating machines in the tank (ie tangs ) so i train them to hand feedIng or to feeding from a DIY feeder that other fish cant reach in to get the food (will find and post a video)
-once fish is eating and starts gaining weight i run 2 cycles of prazi and also mix prazi with food. Ive had rare cases where prazi cut the apetite of the fish and many will spit food with prazi a few times before getting used to the taste. But all fish have come back to normal eating after few days.
-if theres any signs of flukes i do a FW dip to confirm its flukes and treat more with prazi and do a fw dip again before moving to tank to make sure no residual flukes are there.
- i cut down on feeding for a couple days a week to entice the fish to nip at aptasia in the intro tank. Might also add a clam and few zoas tonobserve for nipoing (no guarantee it wont happen when in tank) or move to my cube to observe for nipping.
Ive traimed many of those and gave many to friend reefers with aptasia issues. Admit that with all this most faded between 6-12 months and died even when they were aggressively feeding. One lived for around 2 yrs in a friend tank. Another one cleaned up a mega infestation of featherdusters and some aptasia in my tank but still faded few months later where it lost weight till it died.
Amazing fish unfortunately not so positive for long term success
maroun.c
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feeding videos can be seen on this page of my build thread when i unfortunately lost the fish.
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/maroun-c-390-g-build-thread.60956/page-13#post-2554576
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/maroun-c-390-g-build-thread.60956/page-13#post-2554576
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Copperbands have a reputation of being a delicate fish, they are not, it's just that many people don't feed them what they are supposed to eat. If you spend some time with them in the sea you will see that they live on worms that they pull from crevices. If you can get some "live" worms in their diet every day they do much better. A healthy copperband will eat any meaty food, but for copperbands, and any fish, food with living bacteria in it is always better. It is true I can't keep them as long as some fish but they should live at least ten years in a tank. I am not sure how long they live in the sea but they do get about 8" long or more. They have exactly the same care requirements as long nose butterflies. I have kept dozens of them over many years and they get clams and worms every day. Good luck.
I took this on Bora Bora.
I took this on Bora Bora.
I thought you had referenced in a different post that you had written some articles regarding fish nutrition. I searched but was unable to find anyCopperbands have a reputation of being a delicate fish, they are not, it's just that many people don't feed them what they are supposed to eat. If you spend some time with them in the sea you will see that they live on worms that they pull from crevices. If you can get some "live" worms in their diet every day they do much better. A healthy copperband will eat any meaty food, but for copperbands, and any fish, food with living bacteria in it is always better. It is true I can't keep them as long as some fish but they should live at least ten years in a tank. I am not sure how long they live in the sea but they do get about 8" long or more. They have exactly the same care requirements as long nose butterflies. I have kept dozens of them over many years and they get clams and worms every day. Good luck.
I took this on Bora Bora.
Maybe I misunderstood but if you have any articles or good places to research this I would be inn your debt Thank you
Paul B
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WandaMay, I have written a few articles on nutrition. I think I wrote some on this forum also. I wrote this about copperbands http://www.saltwatersmarts.com/succeed-with-copperband-butterflyfish-chelmon-rostratus-2888/ But I really don't like, and am probably not allowed to link other places so if it is a NoNo, please delete it. I also wrote a book. https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/p...nique-book-on-marine-aquarium-keeping.216448/
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lou dog420
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I'm sorry to hear that.
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lou dog420
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I think our yellow tangs are related!!
Deaf clown
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My yellow tang was pretty aggressive the first few days.
For feeding I'll try clams or black worms. I know the guy who owned It before me feed black worms and had success. One of my favorites next to my lightning maroon clown.
vic5hands
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that rock would have been taken out and put in Aiptasia XTop is before and bottom is after 2 weeks since I've own my copper band. And even more aiptasia are gone. (This is with my 10k lights so please ignore the ugliness)
My yellow tang was pretty aggressive the first few days.
For feeding I'll try clams or black worms. I know the guy who owned It before me feed black worms and had success. One of my favorites next to my lightning maroon clown.
Deaf clown
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I almost did do that. But I wanted to try the "natural approach". First with berghai nudibranchs-which failed because I think the aiptasia were too big at this point. Then I got the butterfly and it's doing great getting rid of them.
Believe me I was very close to buying aiptasia x.
Wow, that is one aggressive Yellow Tang! I have 2 yellows and a Desjardin's tang in my 150 (that started in 2 different tanks). The are always chasing each other around, but that seems to be the extent of it. It sure looks like they are roughing each other up, but I don't see any damaged fins, gashes, etc. As the Desjardin's is going to get 3x as large as the yellows, they will need to learn some manners in the future.
Bruce
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