Copperband Butterfly Primer

Just thaught I would share that my CBB is eating earthworms from my hand after 2 weeks of having him. Earth worms seem to be treating him well. He has started to pick at a few aptasia. He even tasted mysis shrimp out of my hand but spits it out.

The earthworms are surely more nutritional:)

Very small earthworms recommended.
 
Really? Is it rare for saltwater fish to eat earthworms or is it something that most of them would eat? I'm just wondering if earthworms should be tried with other finicky eaters?
 
Thanks Paul B. Oils eh?! Never would have thought. I would also assume since they are eating dirt all day they would be full of nutrients.

Surely if worms are used time and time again at successfully catching fish. There has to be something good in there or fish wouldnt bite more than once right!

The whole saltwater fish should eat things from the ocean debate is an interesting one. Mysis are fresh water, found VERY deep in fresh water lakes, highly doubtful that any natural reef fish is eating them, yet artificial reefs seem to do well when fed mysis.
 
i have had a CBB for 7 weeks now, he was at the LFS for a month before i bought him. He eats hikari mysis like its going out of style. i feed him 4 times a day half a cube of mysis at a time. i mix in rods food and PE mysis but its hit or miss with the rods and doesnt really like the PE mysis. it wont touch anything else either. its currently housed in a 30 gallon thats been up almost a year with nice tank makes, sunburst anthias, firefish and a clown goby.

i finally got some black worms and to my suprize it ate a couple and now ignores them. i have been trying to feed it to him for 2 days and it could care less about the worms.

it will be going into my 40 gallon soon and then into my 84 gallon after i take it down and redo the stand.

what a great fish, its such a fun fish to watch and have.
 
Saltwater fish should eat animals from saltwater but worms even land worms also have the Omega oils that fish need.
I have fed earthworms for years. Anemones love them also.
You need to get oil into fish to keep them healthy and get them spawning. A fish in the sea eats whole fish, not the stuff we normally feed them. A whole fish contains a lot of oil and it is almost all in the liver. If you can't feed whole fish then the next best thing is worms or fish eggs.
I personally feel that if you can't feed whole fish, fish eggs or worms then your fish can not get into excellent condition and they willl be suseptable to paracites or other diseases.
Almost 20% of a wild fishes diet in the sea is oil. Mysis, flakes, nori, clams, squid, angel diet etc do not contain fish oil.
There is a little in whole clams but worms are full of oil as are fish eggs.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15371758#post15371758 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by CaliDreaminjC
Kudora... do you think 30G is way too small for a small-sized CBB?
Click to expand...

its more of an acclimation tank, i have done strait up QT before but didnt this time since i needed to feed 4 to 5 times a day and trying different foods i thought the ammonia could be a prob. the tank is set up for the CCB with one large cave and not much else. i also wanted to have other fish in the tank so it could see the other fish eating frozen mysis so i bought the other fish it was with(same tank) in the LFS.
 
Very interesting as we humans also react VERY well to oils such as omegas.

What your saying makes perfect sense to me. In the past Ive fed my blue carpet anemone chunks of mackerel and Ive never seen my anemone that happy. It just so happens that mackerel are one of the oiliest fish out there, full of omegas. I have to admit I feel pretty good too after eating a nice serving of some raw mackerel:)

Good to know earthworms are oily too, good survival food :)


<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15372785#post15372785 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Paul B
Saltwater fish should eat animals from saltwater but worms even land worms also have the Omega oils that fish need.
I have fed earthworms for years. Anemones love them also.
You need to get oil into fish to keep them healthy and get them spawning. A fish in the sea eats whole fish, not the stuff we normally feed them. A whole fish contains a lot of oil and it is almost all in the liver. If you can't feed whole fish then the next best thing is worms or fish eggs.
I personally feel that if you can't feed whole fish, fish eggs or worms then your fish can not get into excellent condition and they willl be suseptable to paracites or other diseases.
Almost 20% of a wild fishes diet in the sea is oil. Mysis, flakes, nori, clams, squid, angel diet etc do not contain fish oil.
There is a little in whole clams but worms are full of oil as are fish eggs.
Click to expand...
 
I have a cbb I have had for a month now. My tank is a 300 gallon with a 120 gallon tank for a sump. The sump is just used for holding live rock and my zeo reactor so its more like another tank. The reason I keep him down there is my PBT picks on him when hes in the display. Anyway he has cleaned out all my aptaisia from all my rock but wont eat anything else. Could he be surviving on something else down there or should I get him out?
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15374659#post15374659 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by nicks387
I have a cbb I have had for a month now. My tank is a 300 gallon with a 120 gallon tank for a sump. The sump is just used for holding live rock and my zeo reactor so its more like another tank. The reason I keep him down there is my PBT picks on him when hes in the display. Anyway he has cleaned out all my aptaisia from all my rock but wont eat anything else. Could he be surviving on something else down there or should I get him out?
Click to expand...

The first one I had in my 125 wouldn't eat anything but the aptasia and tube worms. Once they were gone, he eventually starved to death. I never could get him to eat anything else, and the 125 didn't make enough to support him apparently. The one I have now eats some frozen food, and is growing and doing well. Good luck.
 
Very interesting as we humans also react VERY well to oils such as omegas.
Click to expand...

We as humans can only take a very small amount of vitamin A and D but fish are used to eating other fish which are loaded with oil. A fish like a shark is about one fifth liver and that is almost all oil.
 
Hey Paul, just picking your brain here about the earthworms.

Do you buy them, or just pull them out of the ground and toss em in?

I've got experience with reptiles, and earthworms are frowned upon for them because they can lead to parasites. What about any other insects for the fish? Meal worms, wax worms, super worms... any experience with any of these? Do you gut load the worms at all?

I hold your opinions to a very high regard, but I have to admit... I don't think I would feel comfortable feeding worms as a staple diet. As a supplemental item I could see it being a great addition to my feeding schedule though.
 
I've got experience with reptiles, and earthworms are frowned upon for them because they can lead to parasites.
Click to expand...

The only problem with land worms is you don't know what the worms have been eating or if they have been exposed to insecticides or grub poisons. If I use earthworms I hold them under a faucet with the head up. Squeeze the worms to clean out their gut. You can also keep them damp for a couple of weeks in clean rotting leaves to purge their system. I used to freeze them and break them in smaller pieces. I don't feel any paracites that would live in a land worm will live in saltwater.

I don't think insects would be a good food. I believe they lack calcium and oils and are mostly protein. Worms are the only non saltwater animal I know of that have the needed oils in them.
I feed live blackworms every day.
 
Aside from what it gets from picking at the rock, my CBB will only eat clam meat. I got it from a fellow reefer who shut down her tank. Because I have several aggressive feeders in this tank, I had to come up with a feeding method where he would get his share. I bought a small plastic box with a lid on it and drilled several small holes in it. He can get get his long, narrow snout in the holes and the other fish cannot. Works great. He is fit and healthy.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15427551#post15427551 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by M. L. Fish
Aside from what it gets from picking at the rock, my CBB will only eat clam meat. I got it from a fellow reefer who shut down her tank. Because I have several aggressive feeders in this tank, I had to come up with a feeding method where he would get his share. I bought a small plastic box with a lid on it and drilled several small holes in it. He can get get his long, narrow snout in the holes and the other fish cannot. Works great. He is fit and healthy.
Click to expand...

Got pics?
 
Here's my CBB. I've had him 6yrs. Survived 1 tank upgrade and 1 house move. His fave food is mysis but He eats live and frozen brine, angel & butterfly mix from SF Bay, cockle in shell and grazes the live rock all day. He likes a nice bristleworm and takes out any fanworms that enter the system.

he's a model citizen, ignores any other fish and my clam. follows me around the tank.

IMG_8224.jpg


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