Copperband Butterfly Primer

[Paul B]

Can I add a CBB: here is what I have

You can add a fish any time you like as long as you can feed it and take care of it for what it is. It is not a damsel and needs a little special care. You really should target feed a CBB and they do not eat flakes. If you can get worms, your chances will be much better.
Good luck
Paul

 

[heap]

i've had a CBB for around a year and a half - it was added directly (no QT) to a 240g display tank that had been running for roughly 2 years.

in a year and a half, i have yet to see it eat prepared food - flakes, pellets, mysis, chopped seafood, various worms, veggie material...anything. he just has no interest.

it made the transition to tank life on a diet of aptasia and small feather dusters, and while i wouldn't describe it as 'plump' or anything, it has remained healthy looking on a diet of tube worms, the occasional small feather duster, clownfish fry (CBB and pajama cardinal turn into tank ninjas on a hatch night), and whatever it is perpetually picking off of rocks.


one thing i found rather interesting about this fish - it is housed in a tank where a ~8" sailfin tang and a 4-5" cinnamon clownfish have become accustomed to dominance....but the CBB will have none of it. when greeted by the sailfin with a raised dorsal fin or a subtle reminder that the tang caries a tail barb, the CBB gets *right* in the tangs face, turning its hind quarters such that the black dot is immediately in front of the tang's eyes. i'm guessing this is in an attempt to use the dot as a 'false eye', but...it's absolutely a guess on my part.

neither the tang nor the cinnamon clown are overly aggressive - they display the 'you should submit or get out of my way' behavior, and typically get their way...it just struck me as entertaining that of all fish, the CBB was the one to effectively call their bluff.

 

[mflamb]

Bummer today. I watched mine die. He was chasing mysis in the currents, and just stopped swimming, flopped over and fell to the bottom.

 

[gusmanda]

I have a trick that I'd like to share, to supplement the diets of these fish. My tank had an infestation of both small red feather dusters and aipstasia. The feather dusters I love, the aipstasia I hate. My CBB, unfortunately, also loves feather dusters, and hates aipstasia, so it ate all of the visible feather dusters and ate none of the aipstasia. It currently feeds on pods and other stuff it seems to pick from the rocks. The interesting thing here is feather dusters seem to survive well underneath the rocks, as well as in the fuge, so what I do is I have 12 rocks with nothing on them, and I turn over one rock each month. This exposes feather dusters, while allowing the other rocks to harvest more dusters, to be exposed afterwards for the CBB to eat. I'm no CBB dietitian, but I assume it must help somewhat. Anyway, I still have a bunch of aipstasia for the CBB to eat, in case it decides to give them a try (hopefully some day)!! CBB has been doing well for about a year now.

 

[Eldredge]

I thought I would give an update on my new CBB. She got a little bigger and quite a bit thicker, and I moved her to the display tank last week. She was a little timid the first few days, but continued eating brine shrimp and blood worms, and started eating mysis. She is getting a lot bolder and swimming the tank. I see her picking at the rocks and hunting and getting a worm here and there. I had a few aptasia that were popping up, and they have disapeared - I guess I will give her credit.

As far as the twitching, I am leaning towards it being behaviorial (not really sure though). She doesn't really do it much any more, and when she does it is ALWAYS with her mouth against the glass. I guess time will tell, but she seems to be doing very well right now.

On a side note, I have some chalice coral frags arriving tomorrow. I have never had any before. Should I be worried about the cbb attacking them? I haven't seen her picking at anything but rock and sand so far.

 

[Zaita]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14883559#post14883559 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Eldredge
On a side note, I have some chalice coral frags arriving tomorrow. I have never had any before. Should I be worried about the cbb attacking them? I haven't seen her picking at anything but rock and sand so far.

There is always going to be a risk with this butterfly, but each one is going to be different. The only way you'd know is by adding the corals and observing the fish.

For the record, mine has so far been completely reef-safe. Much more so than my Blue/Hippo Tang.

 

[Eldredge]

Thanks Zaita. I will do that. Hopefully, it won't bother the chalice.

Kind of interesting, I have a blue/hippo tang in quarantine right now. I wasn't worried about it until now. I guess you just never know for sure.

 

[Packersfan21]

I got a CBB yesterday. There is a guy from the lfs that comes once a month to do waterchanges and other maintnence on the tank. Since there was quite a bit of apitasia in the tank last month, he suggested getting a CBB. However, he unepectedly brought one in yesterday. This is only his second day in the DT, but so far he seems healthy. He's about 5-6" and he's already eatin about 90% of the apitasia. I have seen him out in the open a couple times, but he darts behind the rocks, as soon as I walk in front of the tank. The only other fish I have in the tank right now are an occelaris clownfish and a percula clownfish.

I'm wondering though if he will eat seaweed salad, and if it is ok or not to find an earthworm or something from outside and try feeding it to him as long as it is rinsed off first.

 

[lombard0]

Has anybody tried to keep a pair (or more) in their reef tank?

 

[the_rider]

Eldredge,

Mine is also twitching, but I discover it's because he's attacking his reflection in the glass, at first I was scared it was flukes but one day I looked at my aquarium from the short side and when he was swimming toward me, he was hitting the glass with his mouth.

Also ,do you guys heard your CBB claps his mouth when he eats ? I often hear a clapping mouth when he's eating mysis, im not sure if it'S his mouth against the glass or if it's his mouth crushing the mysis ?

 

[the_rider]

Eldredge,

Mine is also twitching, but I discover it's because he's attacking his reflection in the glass, at first I was scared it was flukes but one day I looked at my aquarium from the short side and when he was swimming toward me, he was hitting the glass with his mouth.

Also ,do you guys heard your CBB claps his mouth when he eats ? I often hear a clapping mouth when he's eating mysis, im not sure if it'S his mouth against the glass or if it's his mouth crushing the mysis ?

 

[Eldredge]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14983811#post14983811 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by the_rider
Eldredge,

Mine is also twitching, but I discover it's because he's attacking his reflection in the glass, at first I was scared it was flukes but one day I looked at my aquarium from the short side and when he was swimming toward me, he was hitting the glass with his mouth.

Also ,do you guys heard your CBB claps his mouth when he eats ? I often hear a clapping mouth when he's eating mysis, im not sure if it'S his mouth against the glass or if it's his mouth crushing the mysis ?

I think there is a good possibility that mine is doing the same thing. She is still doing well. I wish she would start to eat more prepared foods, but she isn't getting thin, so I guess she is doing well. I hope yours does well too. Good luck.

 

[Crusty Old Shellback]

Fishey die

Fishey die

Well as my daughter used to say years ago, "fishey die".

I just found this thread and so will give you my experiences.

Tank is a 400G mixed reef.

I originally bought a pair of CBB's to put in the tank and take care of my apastia problem. They did great and cleard my forest of apstia. They were good friends and usually swam together. I got them from a wholesaler who had recently gotten them in. I did not QT and put them directly into the display tank in hopes that they would survive knowing their dismal survival rate.

Luck being on my side, they survived just fine. They even strated eating pellet food which is what i fee my fish. I guess it was them seeing the other fish eat the pellets that they learned it was a food source and started eating them.

After about a year of keeping them, the larger one I assume got into a tassel with my rabbit fish. The rabbit is blind in one eye and so i gess got spooked by the CBB or my wrasse. The reason I suspect this is that I was in the garage where the tank was temporarly set up and I heard a big splash of water. When I turned around, I found my wrasse on the floor, he had jumped out. When I put him back in the tank, I noticed that the rabbit fish was in his defense coloring and running around spooked. After looking at the tank for a sec, I saw my larger CBB cowering in the rocks and not looking good. The next day, he was dead. So I'm assuming he got stung by the rabbit fish.

The second CBB was doing fine. He would still cruise the tank and pick at the rocks, never bothering anything or anybody. I have never seen him pick at any of my corals.

Fast forward about 3 years and last night I noticed that the CBB was not out swimming around like he usually does. Both my CBB and Moorish Idol are always out cruising the tank. I took a really hard look throughout the tank but can not find him so I'm assuming he has passed on.

One thing about my CBB is that he was always swimming. The tank is 7 feet long and so he had plenty of swimming room. Did that part add to my sucess? I don't know, but it didn't hurt. I also use NSW for my tanks. Did that help my sucess? Well it definatly didn't hurt it any. Even after the lights would go out, the CBB would be crusing the tank. He was never shy and hardly ever hid in the rocks. Even when I would us emy mag scraper to clean the front glass, he would follow it along. As I would get down near the sand and stir it up some, releasing some spaggetti worms into the water, he was there to quickly grab a snack.

The only fish he ever showed any aggression to was my Moorish Idol when I first put the MI in the tank. This lasted a couple of days and then they seemed to be best of riends and would swim together.

So that's my story, maybe someone might find something in there that will help them. Good luck.

RIP my CBB.

 

[tinyfish]

I have not been able to find anything that my CBB will eat. It does pick at something on the rocks but I am worried about long term.

I have tried mysis, brine shrimp, arcti-pods, flakes, pellets, bloodworms. I have tried ordering black worms but they are not here yet.

Is there something else to try? (The LFS assured me it was eating mysis.) (In Dallas area)

 

[Hal]

Tinyfish,

Ask the LFS what brand they were using. My CBB prefers P.E. brand mysis. It has refused to eat at least one other brand.

Also, are any of the food that you've tried live? Or all frozen? Have you tried using garlic and/or Selcon?

 

[Hal]

double post

 

[tinyfish]

Tried Hikari mysis. Someone else on this thread mentioned P.E. Mysis.
All frozen as I don't have any means currently. I have not done Garlic or Selcon yet although those have also been mentioned. I figured to try to get it to eat first and then enhance the food.

 

[Gary Majchrzak]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14983810#post14983810 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by the_rider
Also ,do you guys heard your CBB claps his mouth when he eats ? I often hear a clapping mouth when he's eating mysis, im not sure if it'S his mouth against the glass or if it's his mouth crushing the mysis ?

it's more common for me to hear a CBB attack prey than actually witness it. The specimen I have right now eats no prepared foods- it grazes entirely on aquarium microfauna and it's been this way for over a year in captivity.

 

[Hal]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15055500#post15055500 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by tinyfish
I have not done Garlic or Selcon yet although those have also been mentioned. I figured to try to get it to eat first and then enhance the food.

Garlic and Selcon are widely recognized (anecdotally) as appetite inducers.

FWIW, my CBB has been in my tank for 3 years. The only thing I can get it to eat is mysis, brine shrimp, bloodworms, and blackworms, all frozen or live. It won't touch flake (although I saw it eat flake at the LFS; I need to call them to find out what brand they use), or pellets. It did eat a MAJOR infestation of aiptasia when I first put it in (bless it's heart). : )

I just tried Ocean Nutrition frozen clams last night as something new; it didn't eat it. Then again, it didn't eat the mysis or bloodworms that I put in either - I hope it's not getting sick.

I also have some Ocean Nutrition frozen squid to try.

 

[morino]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13588417#post13588417 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by 64Ivy
Reluctant eaters may be stimulated with chopped local clam, oysters, or mussel on the half-shell. Place the meal near the tanks return so that the meat moves slightly in the flow. Obviously, this is best done in a QT tank so greedy and established tankmates don't gobble the food before the CB ventures out for a look. Do not leave the food out any longer than 15 minutes at a time. If the fish doesn't 'bite' in that time, remove it and try again that evening.

If the CB DOES seem interested but never picks and its belly seems pinched, it might have been a cyanide capture and will probably starve to death no matter what you offer it. The CBs from Australia supposedly come in much healthier and are never caught with cyanide.

i tried frozen clam,mussel frozen and fresh,cyclopeze,krill(this he would take into mouth and than he spit it out and than i gave him frozen mysis i have him for a month.