Copperbanded Butterfly Fish

I've had my CBB for about two weeks now. I was lucky enough, and to my surprise, to see him eat Mysis at the LFS before I brought him home. He goes nuts for Mysis but hasn't tried at any other prepared foods. I have one aptasia in the tank that is currently untouched by him. I don't care if he doesn't eat the aptasia, I just don't want him to go after any of my polpys and such. So far so good though! Here is a pic of him.
Copperband.jpg
 
Nice picture blazer.

I just setup a 50G tank today after breaking down a 125G FOWLR and a 55G reef. LFS kept some of the fish and rock. The one bigger fish I kept out of the lot was my CBB. I sure hope he does OK and leaves my polyps and my anemone alone. So far he seems OK, already ate and it's his first day in the tank.

Beautiful fish. I know the 50G (36"x18") is a bit on the short size for a fish like this but I just couldn't part with her. She is the new queen of the tank and I have high hopes that she will be OK.
 
Here's my CBB. Got him on 2-10-06 and put both him and his buddy, a tiny six line wrasse, thru QT with hypo for 6 weeks. Ich appeared on both after 3-5 days and was gone 2 weeks later with the hypo. Thanks to Paul B I now feed him black worms and he devours as many as he can in a few minutes and is fat and happy for the rest of the day.

Copperband_butterfly.jpg
 
I've had a C. muelleri Copperband for about 3 years now and maintained it on a base diet of PE Mysis (soaked in Selcon), several of the Ocean Nutrition frozen foods, and whatever it can glean from my refugium. Initially, I coaxed it into eating with a selection of fresh local clams, oysters, and mussells which I served on the half-shell twice a day while in QT. By the way, a few weeks in quarantene is almost imperative with this fish, imo. It came in not eating and had I not given it time to adjust and rebuild its strength, it probably would not have made it. Anyway, after two weeks of eating the shellfish, I gradually weaned it over to the Mysis and we've never looked back.

By the way, in only three days this guy single-handedly obliterated the moderate Aiptasia infestation that was plaguing my tank. And we're talking about a 500g!

I went with the muelleri because, being exclusive to Austrailia, I knew there would be no chance of drugs involved in its capture. Also, it is claimed they are hardier in general. Unfortunately, they are not imported often and go quickly when they are. Mine came from The Marine Center.


Muelleri-11-03.jpg
 
I am envious. I have wanted one of those for a couple of years. I am on the wait list with the Marine Center right now. Hope to have one in 5-10 years if I'm lucky. Mine won't even look at the aiptasia in the 75 gallon he's in right now.
 
Mine also will not eat aiptasia but it loves spaghetti worms which I used to have all over the place, now there are none. I kind of liked those worms too. I feed copperbands black worms which I first feed with Selcon. Black worms can suck up a lot of Selcon so I have been mixing it with some type of liquid coral food. It's much cheaper than Selcon and I just want the worms well fed, I don't need athlete worms. :eek1:

13094copperband.jpg
 
Feeding copperband

Feeding copperband

I've had mine for about 6 months and he eats most meaty frozen foods. His favorite frozen prepared food is bloodworms. This is the first food I got him to eat other than pods from the rocks. Now he'll eat brine, mysis, emerald entree, butterfly formula. About an hour before the tank lights come on he is the only fish moving about the tank searching so he gets a special feeding of bloodworms or mysis that I feed him with some tongs. His name is Erwin (after Steve Erwin). I got him about a week after Steve passed away. My copperband is from Australia. He is my special fish. I love how he wags his tail.

;)

Here's Erwin:
IMG_6795.jpg
 
Mine never bothered anything but the clams mentioned previous. I gave him to a friend and he cruises in his 250g. However he had to move his clams elsewhere, as the copperband went after them.

By his description of the way he went after the clams, it sounded much worse than when he use to just nip at my crocea mantles. Its my opinion that feeding them the store bought freshwater clams we mention in this thread, which is an excellent food for them, made this worse and not better as some mentioned. This was my fear and appears to be true.

With this beautiful fish, going on 3yrs. old now, the choice is him or clams. :D
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9640915#post9640915 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by 05Xrunner
Do these guys go after pods alot..I have a mandarin and I dont want it to go after its main food.
Click to expand...

Yes, I would say mine and some others I know did. My mandarin was pretty fat before the copperband was introduced, although some other factors came into play. I had to farm him out to fatten him up again.
 
So far I've had my CBB for nearly 2 years. I'm not sure if he was eating at the LFS but I managed to get him to start eating mysis on the same day by squashing some into a shell placed on the sand bed.

He got rid of all my feather dusters and killed a tube worm that I had, other than that the CBB has caused no harm to invertebrates or corals.

Mine eats mysis, brine, bloodworms, squid , prawn, clam and mussels.
 
I have had a CCB in my 180 mixed for about 4 mo now. He eats mysis shrimp like crazy and get little neck clams every other day. I'm currently setting up a fuge to supplement. I have a 6 inch clam that has never been bothered by the CCB.
 
I just got one last week, and it is a beutiful fish. Hopefully it will clear out the aiptasia.

I am feeding the tank with small sinking pellets this week in an auto feeder, as I am trying to get everyone used to it for my vacation next week.

I do not see him really eating anything. Even the frozen mysis cubes that I defrost before dropping in.

Will he eat the little pellets? some drop on the rock near "his section" of the tank. Will he pick at those?
 
Well I got one tonight. I have been watching this one at the store for about 3weeks. Seemed to be healthy. Saw it picking food off therocks in store. So i took it home. Within 5mins seem to go around picking at the rocks. Seems to be pretty healthy. I am glad I held out on the other 5 I saw before. This one seems to be a good one.
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