Copper Band Butterfly "HOW TO?"

[Thaxxx]

I don't find them finicky at all. First of all, don't quarantine it, they hate that.
In the sea they eat worms that they use their long snouts to get. I feed mine clams. I buy live clams and freeze them, then shave off thin pieces. My present copperband is about 10 years old.
I also give him live white worms or blackworms. A good commercial food is LRS Reef Frenzy which I use as my staple.

Why do you buy live clams just to go and freeze them? Just for the freshness?

 

[Paul B]

Just for the living bacteria in them. Commercially frozen food and anything dry won't have the correct living bacteria that I am looking for.

 

[Thaxxx]

So freezing preserves the live bacteria?

 

[Paul B]

No, but home freezing doesn't kill most of the bacteria. Most commercial food is too sterile and some of it is irradiated to kill bacteria.
Commercial freezers are colder than a home freezer.
I want the bacteria intact as much as possible.

 

[Thaxxx]

Thanks for that info.

 

[Glott3133]

Will a CBB instantly go after aptasia in a tank, or does it have to be formally introduced?

 

[Paul B]

Some copperbands like mine, never went after aiptasia.

 

[Amado]

I had a copper band and it was one of my favorite fish. What I was told was that these fish will not eat pellets of any sort. They don’t like eating out of the water column.
They need rocks. They will eat aptasia if you are lucky. But they spend the whole day eating pods and worms. They really like black worms. I also had good luck feed clam on the half shell. I would put the clam and the shell in a rock. LRS is a good frozen food to feed.

https://www.liveaquaria.com/product/3739/?pcatid=3739

 

[35ppt]

They reproduce very fast as long as you fed them bread and yogurt. You can take as many as you like but you don't need to feed them to the fish every day. Once or twice a week is fine just to get the bacteria into the fish. Of course if you run a quarantined tank, you are on your own and you will not be able to feed live foods and IMO you will not be successful with a copperband long term. They live over 12 years, maybe 20



I feel quarantining is the worst thing we invented for this hobby and an "intelligent, curious" fish like a copperband will not do well in quarantine.
Their diet consists of live worms which you should not feed to any quarantined fish.

QT doesn't have to be a stressful thing. You can feed live foods in a QT, as you know, and your QT doesn't need to be barren. Add lots of plastic corals and plants, feed often and make sure to have fully cycled the tank before the addition of any fish. Also don't use a tank that's too small for the fish. If you take a fish and put it in a un-cycled tank that's too small and only has a couple pieces of PVC pipe fittings of course it's going to add to the stress but if it's done correctly there should be no added stress.

/I think the problem with QT is people's perception of what a QT is.

 

[bblumberg]

Will a CBB instantly go after aptasia in a tank, or does it have to be formally introduced?

None of my aiptasia-eating fish went after the aiptasia immediately. This includes several filefish, both matted and green, Klein's butterflies and copper-banded butterflies. However, all of them eventually ate the aiptasia (but some better than others).

My current copperbands (one in display tank, one in frag tank) took at least a week before they started eating obvious aiptasia. It took a few week more before they went after the ones deep in rock crevices that I could see, but Kleins and filefish could not reach. Eventually they managed and I can't see any aiptasia in either of my tanks. No doubt they are hidden somewhere, but out of sight out of mind...

 

[ReefHog]

Blackworms are one of my favorite foods and if you quarantine, any parasites on the worms won't effect salt water fish.

Black worms are usually the first food I feed all new fish in quarantine. But I don’t medicate with CP until/unless the fish is eating aggressively. Sometimes it’s a day or two and sometimes it’s weeks. Occasionally never.