Copperband Butterfly Primer

Hi all. I bought a CBB about 4 weeks ago who was eating mysis in the store. After 2 weeks of QT, eating mysis (wouldn't eat anything else) and showing no signs of disease I decided to put him in the DT. He ate mysis in the DT for about 3 days, but ever since I tried some Rod's food (which he didn't like) he hasn't eaten anything. Water quality is perfect and although they are aggressive feeders, the other fish ignore him. He'll come out and look at the food with the rest of the fish but then just lets it float by him. I've tried a "feeder" which he didn't even look at, and will continue to try other foods, but any ideas why he would decided to stop eating the mysis?
 
Hi all. I bought a CBB about 4 weeks ago who was eating mysis in the store. After 2 weeks of QT, eating mysis (wouldn't eat anything else) and showing no signs of disease I decided to put him in the DT. He ate mysis in the DT for about 3 days, but ever since I tried some Rod's food (which he didn't like) he hasn't eaten anything. Water quality is perfect and although they are aggressive feeders, the other fish ignore him. He'll come out and look at the food with the rest of the fish but then just lets it float by him. I've tried a "feeder" which he didn't even look at, and will continue to try other foods, but any ideas why he would decided to stop eating the mysis?

My CBB seems to get overwhelmed by all the food floating around during feeding if I just pour the food in. He can't decide which piece to go for and pretty soon its gone. He won't go after little pieces either. Mine is eating Rod's and mysis. I feed him with a turkey baster and he sits right by the opening and grabs the food as it comes out. Try that.
 
Hi all. I bought a CBB about 4 weeks ago who was eating mysis in the store. After 2 weeks of QT, eating mysis (wouldn't eat anything else) and showing no signs of disease I decided to put him in the DT. He ate mysis in the DT for about 3 days, but ever since I tried some Rod's food (which he didn't like) he hasn't eaten anything. Water quality is perfect and although they are aggressive feeders, the other fish ignore him. He'll come out and look at the food with the rest of the fish but then just lets it float by him. I've tried a "feeder" which he didn't even look at, and will continue to try other foods, but any ideas why he would decided to stop eating the mysis?

Have you tried feeding with with the pumps off. Mine did not like to eat when I feed him with the pumps on, he would just let the food float by. But when i turn the pumps off he would let the food hit the bottom and pick the food from the substrate.
 
I have 2 questions for you copperband enthusiasts. How much do you feed your copperband and for those of you that managed to do it, how did you get it to start eating pellets. I find myself feeding 3x a day with mysis(1/2 cube) mixed with a pinch of thera +a pellets. I'm having a hard time controlling phosphates with that much food. Can I get away with less?
 
Being no expert I can only share my experience here.
Try feeding live foods to your CBB. The live bloodworms are available online if not at your LFS. That is all mine would eat to start. Now he takes frozen as well but he loves the live food.
How much to feed? I literally give mine and incidentally all the other tank denizens, all they will eat. At least three times per day feedings of live bloodworms, frozen foods mixed and a mix of cyclopeeze, rotifers, etc for corals and pipefish.
I do change some water religiously every other day, use a bag of activated carbon changed every week, and of course protein skimming. This way I feed with abandon, my fish are happy and not skinny. Of course I only feed until they lose interest. Hope this helps you figure out your situation.
 
The live bloodworms are available online if not at your LFS.

I think you mean blackworms. Bloodworms are not really worms but skinny beetle larvae and I don't think they sell them alive. I don't think so anyway.
 
I have 2 questions for you copperband enthusiasts. How much do you feed your copperband and for those of you that managed to do it, how did you get it to start eating pellets. I find myself feeding 3x a day with mysis(1/2 cube) mixed with a pinch of thera +a pellets. I'm having a hard time controlling phosphates with that much food. Can I get away with less?

Sorry, I may have omitted some details. My CBB is eating frozen mysis. I'm just trying to get him on pellets. I've been thawing the mysis mixed with pellets since day one and he doesn't seem to even see the pellets. As for feeding. He's already healthy looking, however I'm having a hard time keeping my sps colourful with all the feeding
 
i was at a LFS and they had one that was eating mysis. I had a large aptasia that thew off a ton of small ones. I always like the CBB but I did not think they ate frozen. So i bought him and he ate mysis and marine quisine. He also cleaned up all of the small aptasias but left three big ones. After a month I decided to nuke the big ones with Aptasia X. Well this was a mistake. The next day he was just sitting in the corner jawing like he was chewing gum. The next day he died. i felt horrible because he was a good specimen that was eating prepared food, not eating corals, and ate aptasia. I just wanted to pass this on so nobody else treats aptasia when they have a CBB in the tank. This is a pic of him before he passed.:(

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Oh man! That is a shame! You'll likely never see this post, but this is the first time I've run across a story like this (and I've read alot!!!) I wanted to move it to last page so more people would see it... Makes sense, but I would have probably done the same thing :(
 
I tried feeding with the pumps off, drilling holes in LR and putting various foods in there, and also live blackworms. Sadly he didn't make it. Im not sure why he stopped eating but I know I won't be trying another one. :(
 
You can get live bloodworm. But i heard they were not really suitable. I have tried frozen blood worm and all the fish love it except the CBB and the mandarin. Is there any disease risk with live bloodworm? They are freshwater so hopefully any pathogens wouldn't live in salt.
Like i said the CBB is eating very well and is nice and fat but will i be catering for all his nutritional needs with PE mysis, regular mysis, and brineshrimp with garlic? what else should i try?

PS Ive been one of the unlucky ones stuck abroad due to the volcanic ash and i was worried about the fish. But they have all come through ok (the mandarin looks thin so added extra live copepods).
 
there isn't any disease risk with blood worms afaik, it's just that they're low on nutritional values (oils and proteins)
 
But the CBB does enjoy hunting them down! I'm about ready to borrow some aptasia-plagued live rock for my fish to enjoy then return it cleaned.
 
Copperband Made It Through Hypo!

Copperband Made It Through Hypo!

Well this past January I picked up a copperband and a blue tang, into the QT tank they went. Of course the tang came down with ich:( The copperband also showed a few signs of it but never anything to bad. I played around with the so called reef safe crap for about two weeks, and soon realized that yes in fact it is snake oil. I had two choices copper or hypo, not convinced that this was always going to be just a QT tank (After all it's a nice 60 gal setup) I did the hypo. Dropped the SG down to 1.009 over the course of about a week. Saw improvement in both fish after about the third day into the drop. Left the SG there for the full 6 week time period. During which I saw no further signs of ich:) I then started the fun task of raising the SG, this I took my time with no need to hurry. Over the course of a month I raised it back up to 1.025. Well today they both made the move to the DT tank. I feed them both heavy before the move. They are not leaving each other's side in the DT. Both of them ate tonight so things are looking good. Long story short my copperband made it through the hypo and is doing great.

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What color are black worms? Are they actually black or do they look a little brownish? My lfs has some live worms but the gal doesn't know if they're black worms or not.

TIA
 
Black worms are a very dark brown color. They are fairly thin, and are generally an inch to an inch and a half long. I think it's fair to say that most live worms found at a LFS are black worms.
 
Update

Update

Here is my Copperband...I have had her for about 1 month. She is around 4"-5" and eats PE mysis like a champ! :cool:

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Just wanted to update my post from over 1.5 years ago and share some new pictures.

She is still doing great and holding her own with some more aggressive tankmates. She eats as much PE mysis & black worms as I will give her. :thumbsup:

Pictures from last night's photo shoot...

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What color are black worms? Are they actually black or do they look a little brownish? My lfs has some live worms but the gal doesn't know if they're black worms or not.

You can see the blackworms here in my wormkeeper.
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Thanks for the info Eskymick and PaulB,

The picture you posted above looks like what I got. They are thin and reddish brown and my copperband goes nuts for them, so do my other fish.
 
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