Cooperband butterfly question

[luke33]

Agreed with alot of what has been said. I would wait until your tank has matured and has a nice population of pods. I waited over a year before adding one, and it took it a week to start eating frozen. In that week if there would not have been significant sources of pods on the LR i believe it would have passed. Now it eats voraciously like the other fish. Once they are established they are very hardy imo unless they get bullied. The longest I kept one is 5+ yrs before having to rehome him. Personally i would never put one in a QT system as I believe it would die. But thats just my opinion : )

 

[Jack Eskay]

I actually just read your article yesterday Paul. It's a great article and defiantly the best I've read. I've decided to wait a few months until I get one. I'm in the process of plumbing and setting up a refugium where I'll add a big store bough thing of pods to boost the population up. I'll do my plan is to wait a few months may after Christmas or In February to get one and go from there. Thank you so much for all the information as this has helped me not only with the CBB but with lots of other stuff too!

 

[Jack Eskay]

I buy the worms weekly and feed them to all my fish. I built a worm keeper.
I wrote an article about copperbands if you are interested.
http://www.saltwatersmarts.com/succeed-with-copperband-butterflyfish-chelmon-rostratus-2888/

Also what was the cyanide problem you mentioned in your article... what is that and what does it do to CBBs and other fish?

 

[Paul B]

Sounds like a plan Jack.

It is called Blue stoning and it is illegal but still used. It is pumped over the coral heads and squirted into holes to stun the fish. They fall to the bottom and are collected. The fish usually live a couple of weeks and may even look better than undrugged fish, but they are doomed to die shortly. It just makes them easy to catch. The fish that are not collected die there.

Here is a video of mine eating some worms when he was young.


And here he is today

 

[Jack Eskay]

Thanks I keep that in mind.. and he's an absolutely gorgeous fish[emoji7]

 

[Oldreefer44]

Not to be a downer, but I will anyway. Highly recommend that you start with easier fish. I have been in the hobby for 40 years. I have large tanks with the best equipment out there and I refuse to watch any more CBB'S wither away before my eyes. While there are those that are successful with them, the vast majority don't make it. Hate to see you fail when just starting out. Good luck!

 

[Tom Blevins]

Sad to say it took us 9 to finally get 1 that holds his own and eats well, we put him in the 30 gallon refugium
for almost a year with a flame wrasse that jumped into the overflow and went down the 2" drain pipe into the refugium.

He is now in the display with the Flame and doing great!

 

[Jack Eskay]

That's a bummer tom glad it finally worked out!!! I'm gonna give my tank some time to mature then take a shot at it!

 

[sanchoy]

CBB can be extremely finicky and wither away and die in front of your eyes. I have seen several in the LFS do this because they just wont eat! However, if you get lucky and get one that accepts frozen they can be very hardy. Mine destroys mysis and loves black worms. I had him for well over 7+ years.

 

[WillReef4Food]

Here is a video of the feeder I was talking about. It's a simple blackworm feeder I modified to have wider slits for the cbb to feed naturally.

 

[Jack Eskay]

Here is a video of the feeder I was talking about. It's a simple blackworm feeder I modified to have wider slits for the cbb to feed naturally.

I'll have to try that when I get one. Thanks! Also where do you get black worms and are they expensive?

 

[saltyhog]

Here is a video of the feeder I was talking about. It's a simple blackworm feeder I modified to have wider slits for the cbb to feed naturally.

Great video! That naso figured the feeder out pretty well! My other fish (especially my Potter's wrasse) have figured out to hang out around my CBB when I hand feed it as bigger pieces take him a couple of tries to get swallowed. They steal the food from him when he's working at swallowing or if it gets caught in his teeth. Those chromis seem to be figuring that out too.

 

[WillReef4Food]

I'll have to try that when I get one. Thanks! Also where do you get black worms and are they expensive?

They can sometimes be sourced locally but you can order by mail. Goal is to ween them off as quick as possible to frozen and flake.