Hi All - Happy New Year!
I want to start this as a breathing document for anyone out there googling how to keep a Copperband Butterfly. There are already several threads but feel free to chime in your success as I document my experience and methods getting it to eat. I have a 72 gallon bowfront with 80 lbs of live rock and a few LPS and softies. My water is at 1.024 salinity and 2.5 nitrates as of today. Zeros with everything else. It is sharing the tank with two ocellaris clowns and a royal gramma.
I purchased it a week ago and quickly noticed it had what I’m pretty certain as lympho. A singular white fuzzy dot on the tail fin that hasn’t spread. Knowing this, I knew I had to spend extra time in order to have a sliver of hope for success. I did not QT this fish although I do have a 29 gallon QT now and will for every fish going forward as ich hasn’t made a cameo yet.
Let me start with saying even a week later, this fish is skittish and shy as you may read other places. For the first two days, it hid in the rocks where even today if it gets spooked, quickly returns to the original hiding places. Over the next several days it has become more comfortable and today has been a milestone where it shows little to no stress and is actively exploring and hunting the rocks.
Now - the feeding... Like I said today has been a milestone in the shy department but as well as feeding. It didn’t show any interest in frozen mysis and brine the first two days so I located some live blackworms and frozen bloodworms. From what I’ve read, bloodworms specifically aren’t great for them, but I had an idea with it all.
He took to the live worms the first time I tried but only ate a couple. I did not stop my powerheads because I want him to learn to fight for his food. I have been doing this for the past 4 days and he quickly gobbles them up now and searches all of the rock to make sure he didn’t miss any. 3 days ago I introduced frozen bloodworms with the black worms to “trick” him. It worked. He now eats both quickly and happily. Well, two days ago on the night feeding (I’ve been doing two feedings a day). I put a drop of garlic extreme with the worms and did it for both feedings yesterday. Today, I only put LRS fish frenzy with a drop of garlic and he without hesitation ate it and then did the rock hunt for leftovers.
I’ve seen him have daily improvements with his aggression towards floating food. So far if I had to say how this worked, I would suggest buying many different foods and figuring out what the fish will take and then try the garlic trick to wean it.
I will try to update this weekly for any future hobbyist that wants to give a CBB a try. What you read about them is true and you must get creative and try many different things. I tried the live oyster from the store, nothing.. although now on frozen he may love it but why do that if the above worked? I drilled pvc and put bloodworms in there with the intent on eventually filling it with only frenzy, completely avoided it. Try everything you have read plus things you haven’t.
Hope this is useful for anyone considering one!
Nate
PS - feather duster in first pic no longer exists ;)
I want to start this as a breathing document for anyone out there googling how to keep a Copperband Butterfly. There are already several threads but feel free to chime in your success as I document my experience and methods getting it to eat. I have a 72 gallon bowfront with 80 lbs of live rock and a few LPS and softies. My water is at 1.024 salinity and 2.5 nitrates as of today. Zeros with everything else. It is sharing the tank with two ocellaris clowns and a royal gramma.
I purchased it a week ago and quickly noticed it had what I’m pretty certain as lympho. A singular white fuzzy dot on the tail fin that hasn’t spread. Knowing this, I knew I had to spend extra time in order to have a sliver of hope for success. I did not QT this fish although I do have a 29 gallon QT now and will for every fish going forward as ich hasn’t made a cameo yet.
Let me start with saying even a week later, this fish is skittish and shy as you may read other places. For the first two days, it hid in the rocks where even today if it gets spooked, quickly returns to the original hiding places. Over the next several days it has become more comfortable and today has been a milestone where it shows little to no stress and is actively exploring and hunting the rocks.
Now - the feeding... Like I said today has been a milestone in the shy department but as well as feeding. It didn’t show any interest in frozen mysis and brine the first two days so I located some live blackworms and frozen bloodworms. From what I’ve read, bloodworms specifically aren’t great for them, but I had an idea with it all.
He took to the live worms the first time I tried but only ate a couple. I did not stop my powerheads because I want him to learn to fight for his food. I have been doing this for the past 4 days and he quickly gobbles them up now and searches all of the rock to make sure he didn’t miss any. 3 days ago I introduced frozen bloodworms with the black worms to “trick” him. It worked. He now eats both quickly and happily. Well, two days ago on the night feeding (I’ve been doing two feedings a day). I put a drop of garlic extreme with the worms and did it for both feedings yesterday. Today, I only put LRS fish frenzy with a drop of garlic and he without hesitation ate it and then did the rock hunt for leftovers.
I’ve seen him have daily improvements with his aggression towards floating food. So far if I had to say how this worked, I would suggest buying many different foods and figuring out what the fish will take and then try the garlic trick to wean it.
I will try to update this weekly for any future hobbyist that wants to give a CBB a try. What you read about them is true and you must get creative and try many different things. I tried the live oyster from the store, nothing.. although now on frozen he may love it but why do that if the above worked? I drilled pvc and put bloodworms in there with the intent on eventually filling it with only frenzy, completely avoided it. Try everything you have read plus things you haven’t.
Hope this is useful for anyone considering one!
Nate
PS - feather duster in first pic no longer exists ;)
