copperband butterfly won't eat prepared food

[salty joe]

I got my CBB 2 1/2 years ago and it refuses all prepared food. He will pig out on white worms out of the water column. I mixed little TDO pellets with the white worms, won't touch the pellets. I put pellets on shellfish and let the pellets soak in and get a little stuck to the shellfish so it must be eating a few pellets but when a pellet breaks loose, forget it.

A beautiful fish, I love that fish but I wish I could get it to eat prepared food.
Anybody have a CBB that eats pellets or other prepared food?

 

[Reefering1]

From my experience, cbb is least likely to eat pellets. Its good that he eats white worms. I would get him trained eating the white worms from a feeder made of pvc or clam shells (search "cbb feeder"). Once eating from the feeder, start mixing in mysis shrimp or other frozen foods. Observe, the cbb should start taking to the frozen food and you can transition from the worms and from feeder. I personally would still offer the white worms though, they are nutritious and he already likes them. Don't push too hard or fast, he may go on a hunger strike. @Goaway is experienced with cbb, may have other ideas...

 

[Cichlid Dad]

I got my CBB 2 1/2 years ago and it refuses all prepared food. He will pig out on white worms out of the water column. I mixed little TDO pellets with the white worms, won't touch the pellets. I put pellets on shellfish and let the pellets soak in and get a little stuck to the shellfish so it must be eating a few pellets but when a pellet breaks loose, forget it.

A beautiful fish, I love that fish but I wish I could get it to eat prepared food.
Anybody have a CBB that eats pellets or other prepared food?

My cbb is just now starting to eat mysis shrimp. Hy loves brine shrimp but wouldn't touch mysis. I started adding mysis with the brine and he would get some in his mouth and spit it out then start taking his time looking over the dinner table before eating it. I don't think you're going to get him to eat pellet food. But if you do congrats.

 

[exnisstech]

I've had mine almost a year now. It eats mysis mostly. It eats black worms and white worms but I rarely feed them as they are not available locally often and my attempt at raising white worms failed.
The only food other than those it will eat is mastick. I mix small pellets in with mastick but I don't think it even touches the pellets. Mine spends a lot of time picking at the rocks so I assume it's eating some type of pod. The fish is thick, healthy and very active so I'm just going to keep this up.

 

[mrpontiac80]

My CBB has only been with me a few months, but it was very picky in qt I eventually found it ate frozen blood worms. After moving it to the display, it has started eating with the other fish everyday. Everyday, I feed a mix of frozen that consists of Rods original, and mysis or brine ( alternating every other day). I also feed a half cube of frozen angel food while substituting frozen blood worms every 2-3 days .
Good luck!