Melon butterflyfish finally eating clam

[Marinebionerd]

Hello all! Just wanted to share that my melon butterflyfish is finally eating clam semi consistently after a week or so of having it. I got really lucky by finding a healthy specimen and I know it usually takes longer for them to adjust to food other than coral. For this past week I have been rubber banding clam on a half shell to dead acros, and live acros, and once he got the taste of the clam I removed all coral, and that seemed to do the trick. Obviously I’m gonna supplement his diet with coral, but this is a big win in my books:)

 

[SurfTrack]

Woohoo! Happy to see it!!

 

[SurfTrack]

Woohoo! Happy to see it!!

 

[Jasonak]

Thats awesome!
Where did you get him from ?

 

[Marinebionerd]

Thats awesome!
Where did you get him from ?

I got him from an LFS I won’t name names but they don’t have the best track record with fish so I definitely took a risk, and I got super lucky with a healthy specimen.

 

[Marinebionerd]

 

[Marinebionerd]

little sucker is eating out of my hand now!

 

[JumboShrimp]

Good looking fish. (And I have found that clams are almost a 'must' to get new Butterfly additions to eat.)

 

[awwinterfall]

How is the butterflyfish doing?

 

[JumboShrimp]

Has he grown noticeable since November? He already looks like a pretty good size fish...

 

[Marinebionerd]

Unfortunately he passed away. I had a heater malfunction (totally my fault) and he didn’t make it. It is such a shame because he was eating clam out of my hand and quickly became my favorite fish. Luckily I had no other fish in the tank, but I’m still beating myself up over it.

 

[JumboShrimp]

Did you know that due to my own mistake, I caused two heaters to fail and I 'cooked' every fish I owned in two (2) 150-gallon tanks!? So you need to do what I did-- I jumped right back into the game, this time will all Butterfly Fish. This is how far along I am, quarantining each one myself first. I hope you climb back in the saddle soon!

 

[Marinebionerd]

Wow beautiful fish! Thanks for the words of encouragement I’m definitely not done, I had so much fun figuring out how to get that stubborn guy to eat. I’ll make a new thread when I get a new butterflyfish that requires a little extra nudge to eat!

 

[JumboShrimp]

I have gotten most of them through Reef Beauties. They update what's in stock on Wed. and Sat. Right now I have this Saddleback and this Fame Hawk from them in QT.

 

[Louis Z]

Happy accident . I feed my zebra eel a lot of thawed crab . Split the crab into quarters without the claws . So I have a lot of claws leftover that the zebra doesn’t have any interest in . So I take a small mallet and smash the claws and open them up . The blackbacked and the white collar butterflyfish went to town on the crab .