Copperband Butterfly and my acans

steallife904

New member
I have had a copperband butterfly in the tank for about 3 weeks now. He eats frozen Mysis no problem and is doing good. I would have liked him to go after my aptasia but he doesn't touch it. Well last night after feeding I watched him slowly go down to one of my acans and pick at it once. I am not sure though if he was trying to eat food out of it or actually go after the acan??? I have also kinda been thinking the last week some of my colonys didn't seem as puffed up as usual and I am starting to think he may be the reason why. So do they actually eat coral or is he just picking food off of it? If he would in fact eat my acans I am going to have to figure a way to get him out!!! Any help is appreciated.
 
my CBB eats my acans. pretty annoying. several of my colonies are pretty contracted, and one has started to recede pretty badly. he seems to prefer my red acans over all else, which figures, because it's one of the few red things i have in my tank.

i like the fish enough that i'm willing to look past it. i feed pretty heavily, so i don't think he's hungry (2 - 5 small feeds a day). just likes an acan flavored snack now and then.
 
Great!!! now I got to figure out how to get him out without breaking down all the rock work. any suggestions? Wondering if I can get him to the top of the tank while feeding and come in behind him with the net. I do like this fish and its one of my wifes favorites but I can have him eating my acans
 
im going to see how the acans look today when I get home and try to watch him to see if he is going after them. If I can confirm he is out. When I feed the fish he comes to the top to get the food as I dump in, I may try to do that and as he is at the top grabbing food see if I can net him....
If not my local club has a fish trap I can use.
 
Maybe you're not feeding enough, especially polychaetes.

I think a lot of copper bands are underfed and then start investigating other potential foods. Not sure if this applies here, but don't spot feed your acans as the fish when hungry then will relate to them as a source of food.

JME
 
I feed Mysis and rods frozen once a day. I never spot feed the acans they just snag some of the food as it flows around. The only other fish in the tank right now who he is competing against is 2 clowns and a longnose hawk (in a 150gal). So when he does eat he seems to get his fill of the Mysis. Is this still not enough for one???
 
I feed Mysis and rods frozen once a day. I never spot feed the acans they just snag some of the food as it flows around. The only other fish in the tank right now who he is competing against is 2 clowns and a longnose hawk (in a 150gal). So when he does eat he seems to get his fill of the Mysis. Is this still not enough for one???

i prefer multiple small feedings a day instead of one large one, however even with this, my CBB is still picking at my acans.

likely it's nothing to do with being hungry or full. most of the fish we keep are fairly opportunistic about eating. so if they identify something as food, chances are sooner or later they're going to try to eat it. sometimes keeping them well fed helps this, some times it doesn't.

it could even be other reasons like boredom, tough to say.

i would say try doing smaller feedings more often, but don't be surprised if this doesn't help his snacking.

this is the rub of having a mixed reef. sometimes things work, sometimes they don't. so you just have to decide what your trade off is going to be. i was bitten by the SPS bug a while ago, so i don't keep too many acans. for me, watching my CBB do his thing around my aquascape is more important than having a nice acan garden. understandably lots of people would feel differently though.

truth be told, i would have gladly removed my acans when he started picking and given them to someone else who didn't have a CBB, but i've had them all for a while, and they've completely encrusted the base rock they're sitting on. so short of tearing down half my rock work and busting out a band saw, there is no removing them.
 
Well.... It might be possible my issue is not the copperband. I have not tested the water in a couple of weeks so tested.... My alk has always sat right at or slightly over 7dkh. It tested 5.9 with salifert..... I thought no way so I used an ATI kit I had and it came in at 6dkh. It seems I have a alk drop and I now wonder if this is the issue. Now time to figure this out :)
 
Well I have all my levels stable over the last few days and still feel like the acans are the only thing in the tank still not 100% happy looking... so still wondering if its my butterfly. I have not caught him actually doing anything to them so I am not sure. What signs would I look for? Would there be bit marks with missing flesh???? I tried looking for that but do not see anything that looks like a bit. What would be the tell tell that its him???
 
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