What does your Copperband Butterfly eat?

[Blazer88]

My CBB was eating Mysis at the LFS before I brought him home 3 days ago. But when I put Mysis into the tank he only seems to be eating like 4 or 5 pieces. He is really interested in the floating food but doesn't eat all of it. What else can I try to feed him? What might be part of the problem is that he may have a parasite or something as he keeps making trips over to my cleaner shrimp. I want to make sure he is getting enough to eat and am willing to try different foods if something is better. Any ideas are appreciated. Thanks!

-Rick

 

[Blazer88]

?

 

[technoshaman]

Try fresh mussels or cockles split and set it in the tank - they seem to go nuts for that. If you didn't quarantine him he may have parasites - maybe consider removing him to a quarantine tank and treating with hex a mit if you suspect internal parasites.

 

[Blazer88]

His fins are just about clear now and he is really active, so the shrimp has been doing his job well. Where can I get cockles? I've heard of that before but don't know where to get them. He seems to like the Mysis after I soak in garlic, but not so interested in Brine, Cylop-eeze, or Spectrum pellets. Thanks for the advice.

 

[tryffin]

Ours seems to like the PE mysis that's cubed best, and not the flat-pack so much ... I don't know why. At first she would only eat the pieces with heads on them, and only the ones that looked like they were moving, but she eats more now, especially since all the other fish are such piggies. She also loves frozen brine shrimp ... but didn't used to like it, I feed her brine in the morning.

If you know anyone with small fanworms, you could put some of them in your tank... I'm always harvesting them from my big tank to put in the 70g where the CBB lives, she just loves them ... rips their little heads off with glee lol.

 

[Blazer88]

I have rocks with small feather duster's in my nano, but I don't really want to pull rocks from there and put them into my main tank. I'm going to go and get some bloodworms to see if the CBB likes those better than mysis. I'm happy it is at least eating some mysis, better than nothing

 

[Torno]

My CBB eats frozen mysis, frozen brine (which I dont offer anymore, only in the beginning to get it on frozen foods), you may also want to try the live bloodworms, my copperband relishes these things! Just remember to enrich with a liquid enrichment like selco, or selcon.( although it wont hurt if you dont) Also some people offer fresh clam on the halfshell, but mine doesnt seem to like this. Good Luck

 

[Blazer88]

I figured out what the problem was. It turns out the Mysis I had was pretty old. I've had the package for a year and it was half full when it was given to me, so who knows how old it really was. I bought a new package and he loved it. He probably ate 20-30 pieces of Mysis Before he would study the food, eat it, and then most likely spit it out. Now he just gobbled up as much as he could. What a relief, I'm happy he is eating Mysis after only 4 days and I don't have to track down live bloodworms or Cockles. Thanks again for everyone's help!