Copperband Butterfly

SurfTrack · Feb 20, 2019

My new CBB is sleeping at the very top corner of the tank, he has darkened but I find it alarming that he hasn't gone into the rocks or anything like all my other fish. He has had a pretty stressful day so could that be the reason?

lolgranny · Feb 20, 2019

Yep, stressed. Hopefully tomorrow will be better for him. What else do you have for tank inhabitants?

madweazl · Feb 20, 2019

They're generally pretty timid, especially if you're interfering in the tank; stay out and leave them be. What do you have in regard to food? Ours will only eat littleneck clams; I'm happy to provide them as everything in the tank loves 'em but it was an adjustment we had to make.

Edit: our yellow tang is a huge bully and certainly adds stress to the situation.

SurfTrack · Feb 20, 2019

lolgranny said:
Yep, stressed. Hopefully tomorrow will be better for him. What else do you have for tank inhabitants?

2 gobys, 2 firefish, 2 clownfish, 1 yellow tang

The tang was bullying him a little bit today buts its all calmed down luckily

SurfTrack · Feb 20, 2019

madweazl said:
They're generally pretty timid, especially if you're interfering in the tank; stay out and leave them be. What do you have in regard to food? Ours will only eat littleneck clams; I'm happy to provide them as everything in the tank loves 'em but it was an adjustment we had to make.

Ive only had it for two days. Planning on picking up some freshwater clams either tmr or the next day

Phillyd1990 · Feb 20, 2019

its pretty early to tell if hes happy. I had one for almost a month till he started to thrive. Masstick and fresh clams got him eating and not long after he was eating mysis out of the water column

SurfTrack · Feb 20, 2019

Phillyd1990 said:
its pretty early to tell if hes happy. I had one for almost a month till he started to thrive. Masstick and fresh clams got him eating and not long after he was eating mysis out of the water column

I have tons of frozen food. If I can at least get him to eat something I will be happy.

lolgranny · Feb 20, 2019

They are definitely picky. I’ve been through a lot over the years. My tangs didn’t like them until I decided to add 2 big ones. They hung out all the time... until the one turned on his brother. Into the other tank he went haha

jd371 · Feb 21, 2019

If you can locate live black worms try feeding him that, my CBB would never have made it through QT without them. He wouldn't eat anything but some mysis sparingly and I felt he wasn't getting enough. Fed him live black worms and the response was amazing. I was able to fatten him up in the QT so the transition to the main tank went smoothly. Now he's eating almost everything that is fed in the tank.

jda · Feb 21, 2019

I would not sweat this. I have found that fish do not care for the "caves" and "arches" that people like to make with their rock. If you just stack the rock up so that there are places where they can totally and completely hide from everything, then they get used more.

Mysis is enough to get them eating. I never found the longer nose butterflies to like clams much.

SurfTrack · Feb 21, 2019

I think he may have picked at some frozen food soaked in garlic today! I couldn't really tell but I am pretty positive I saw him pick at a couple things in the water column.