Need Advice on a Long Nose Butterfly

[Long Time Beginner]

I got a Long Nose Butterfly two days ago. I actually bought him 10 days ago and left him in the LFS to make sure he was eating and looked healthy. I saw him take frozen brine at the store. Now that he's home, I have a few questions/issues:

1) I haven't seen him eat at home yet. I've been feeding a mixture of frozen brine and frozen bloodworms (I tried just brine too). I have seen him pick a few things off my rocks but that's about it. Any advice on getting him to eat at home? I've heard that garlic may help; what kind of garlic and how to you mix it?

2) He spends a LOT of time just swimming up and down staring at the glass at the side of my tank. Usually he will point his nose to the sky and swim up/backward, then face the glass and go back down to the bottom corner. He does break away and wander around the rest of the tank occasionally but he always returns to that corner again. Is that normal?

He does look plump, vibrant, and healthy, so maybe I'm just being overly cautious. If there's anything else I can do to make sure he adapts to my tank though, I want to do it!

 

[Blazer88]

I have a recent Copperband Butterfly, so I'll see if I can help.

1) You can get garlic at probably any LFS. I soak Mysis in a few drops of Garlic when I feed it to my CBB, but he doesn't seem to care if the Mysis is soaked in garlic or not as he will just eat it either way. I've noticed my CBB doesn't eat brine or bloodworms, just Mysis. I would give that a shot.

2) Mine would run his nose along the glass for the first couple of days. I am just guessing he is getting used to the tank and trying to figure out why he can't swim past the glass. The reaction may also be since he can see his reflection. Either way, it will go away. Best of luck!

 

[bjolly]

try live blackworms. mine couldn't resist them.

 

[The steven liu]

First of all, longnose is not reef safe, so hopefully your coral polyps will not become it's next meal. And 54G is really pushing it on their swimming room. It might not be happy where it is at. Make sure it is not swimming with its head down, it will indicate a bladder injury due to poor decompression during capture. In that case there is nothing you can do.
Aside from that, garlic would be a good start to get fishes in good apetite. Both brimeshrimp and blood worm aren't true marine species thus many marine fishes will either reject it or eat it and not really benefit from it. I suggest you give mysis shrimp a shot. We feed our longnose a mix of formula1, mysis shrimp, and frozen cyclopeeze at the store.

 

[yoboyjdizz]

garlic extreme mixed with meaty foods brine shrimp or mysis shrimp got mine eating. As for being reef safe IME there almost as hit and miss as the copperband butteryfly fish, i wouldnt call them not reef safe just with caution. 54g is on the small side they can reach upwards to 9inches in length.

 

[Long Time Beginner]

I had some mysis already so I tried that and didn't see much difference. I will be heading to the LFS as soon as they open today to pick up some garlic and any other foods they have that I haven't tried yet.

Would a long nose eat phytoplankton? I put phyto in the tank for some of my corals and he seems to swim around "pecking" at the water column for a while after I do that. Could he be eating the phyto?

My fish doesn't seem to be swimming with his head down (unless he's actually heading down!), so I don't think he has a bladder injury. His swimming patterns seem to be getting a little more "normal" too, so hopefully he is getting used to his surroundings.

I know a 54 is a bit small; I am building an addition on my house now and will be putting a bigger tank (125 or 150) in once it's done. As for long noses and reef safeness, I really don't care if he nips at my corals. I like fish much better than corals!

 

[Palani]

Live tubifex worms worked for me

 

[Long Time Beginner]

I picked up some "garlic guard" at my LFS yesterday and mixed that into a mush of brine, bloodworms, and cyclopeeze. I've fed two meals of this so far (one last night and one this morning). My long nose butterfly gobbled it down both times!

Thank you to everyone who replied here!