Feeding Copperband Butterfly

[justin100]

I am not to sure what to feed my Butterfly. It seems to be doing ok, but i just need to know what it needs to eat. Please help I really don't want it to die.

[GaryP]

Get about a half dozen Live Black Mussels from HEB. They can't resist them. Eventually you should be able to feed him eaty meaty foods like mysids and krill. Wash them off, open them, then wash out the insides before putting in the tank. If they die, they open up. Put them in the freezer after they die and feed them later. Make sure they don't get in the fresh water from the ice they send them home in. As long as they are alive you can hold them in the refrigerator. Check them every day and move the dead ones to the freezer, then start feeding the frozen ones. Just let them soak in some warm water for a few mintues to thaw them before opening and cleaning them.

Where did you get your CBB? Be aware that they usually come with a lot of parasites. CB Pets does a really good job of dipping and quarantining them. I'm not to sure about any of the other LFS. If you have any other questions, bounce them off Larry (Instar). He's our resident CBB expert. What I know about them I learned from him. Richard at CB pets is also a really good source of info on CBB.

Gary

[Instar]

One note about the dead mussels - if they do die before you put them in the freezer, thats really not good. Once dead, they are unhealthy because of bacterial growth and they go foul very fast. You are likely to loose the fish if they eat that one. The message here is if they are open and don't shut when you pick them up, toss them in the trash. You can keep them for a few days in the frig usually and then you have to feeze them live. Live frozen, unstinky ones are fine. The plankton from San Francisco Bay in the little cube packages, mysis, and at first, the frozen white mosquito larva. Once they start eating good the white mosquito lava, then mysis is next, then you should be ok. Just watch for parasites like Gary said. If you have trouble getting it to eat a lot, pm me. Feed it at least 2x per day and look to see its belly get full. They will eat anytime there is any light at all in the tank, dawn to dusk as you can see by their hunting the rocks. You really should have a pretty fair sized tank unless its a very tiny fish. Even then, bigger is better without aggressive tank mates at first.

[GaryP]

Thanks for the correction on the dead mussels Larry.

[Richard]

Richard at CB pets is also a really good source of info on CBB.


Thanks for the curse Gary! Just got home to find my cbb belly up in my 215. Sucks, this one had come in with lymphocystis but always ate very well. Took me 4 weeks to get him looking good before I brought him home 2 1/2 weeks ago - Sometimes this hobby sucks! My fault though, the tank isn't mature/stable enough to be trying a cbb in yet. I should know better. Sure wish I could blame the LFS though.

justin100
I usually start them on mysis. Turn the current in your tank down so that it settles to the bottom, takes them awhile to learn to chase moving food down. If they won't go for mysis I try bloodworms. If they don't go for that I try brine shrimp. I usually avoid giving them brine shrimp because I've had a couple get "hooked" on it and it really isn't nutritious enough for them.

Larry
I've tried the mussel thing several times but they rarely go for them. Is there a trick? I just cut them open, rinse under tap water and drop them in the tank.
Frozen white mosquito larva? Your talking about glassworms right? I will have to try those.

[Richard]

Oh yeah...I've also had some problems in the past getting certain fish to eat (butterflys, angels, tangs) in tanks that were not grounded. As soon as I put grounding probes on them they started eating just fine. So if your tank's not grounded that might be something else to consider.

[Instar]

Richard, yes glass worms. SFB puts them in those little cubes and calls them whiite mosquito larva. I don't let the food settle to the bottom. Sometimes mashing blood worms into a brain skeleton will start them too. As for the live black mussel, cut the aductor mussel with a pocket knife and open them up wide open. Put it someplace the CBB will frequent and let it be. Put it in the early morning and let it alone till the next morning. Its alive so it won't foul things up even though its open. The crabs will get it anyway. Try again. Try again. Try two, a crab decony and one for the fish. Don't fret with new arrivals as they pout for a while after a move and during that time will starve themselves. If it goes on for more than a few days and the brain worm tricks don't work, mussels don't work and nothing works, you must have live mosquito larva ready to go or live feather dusters. Mostquitoes are easy in your back yard most of the year here. If that doesn't work, then the feather dusters will and then it gets really expensive. After they start eating good, you have to get the parasites off them without moving them to a QT tank. That is the hard part. It takes a living reef to get them going and to a thrive point sometimes. They like live tiny bristle worms, live gammarus shrimp and the very small little true glass anemones (not aiptasia). They also like live mysis shrimp and will catch them at dawn and dusk. Unfortunately we usually don't have enough of all this in our tanks. Live zoo plankton works too. Do not even try feeding mysis and krill that is packed by fish food companies in a gel binder. Its hard enough to get them on mysis thats just plain frozen. Thats why I like the SFB brand as it has no gel binder. I used a little garlic a couple times to stimulate them, but, not the first day or two. Mine are doing great. I've had them for well over a year now and the one that eats aiptasia from rocks I hold in there for him has been with me for a couple years now. They cost me a small fortune to clean up and get healthy. I still have feather dusters in there too. Cool, I think. They learned to co-exist. You have to feed them tons so their intestines and bellies don't collapse. If that happens, they probably will not live without some extra special care. And if they are drugged or medicated by wholesalers, you have no control over that. Copper kills the copper eventually. And I really haven't seen one do well with sps reefs running kalk and getting the alkalinity way up and out of balance with Ca++ and Mg++ and bicarb. A little bit maybe, but, most people really wack their tanks up with additives to foster sps without consideration of what its doing to the rest of the life in there. These things live in a balanced buffer system and just don't have the kidneys or gills to compensate that much. The reef waters are normally very stable and not overly alkaline. I might add that I only have the natural equivalent of a calcium reactor. No additives in my reef now as its been cycled fully and is very stable.

[justin100]

Thanks for the advice!!! But one more question the cbb will take the mysis in its mouth and the spit it back out is this ok?

[SueT]

Yes, the copperband will shuck the shell of the mysis shrimp out.

Mine has now been with me for 4 years and is a big old pet. It is a mysis eating pig.

[GaryP]

Good to see your input Sue. I haven't seen you around for a while.

Gary

[SueT]

Thanks Gary, just doesn't seem to be enough hours in the day. :lol:

[GaryP]

Sue,

What is the address to MARSH? I don't have it in my bookmarks.

Gary

[Shark_Bait]

I have a 75 gal that has been up for a little over a month with about 100Lbs of live gulf rock. It has what I believe is aptasia all over it. Was going to get some peppermint shrimp in to take care of the problem but was told (another thread) that they might go after my other anemones. So went for a CBB thinking that it would be in heaven with all the aptasia. Did I make a bad call ? Should I call and swith the order back to peppermints?
Gary said that they usally come with parasites whats the best quarintine procudures for a CBB.

Thanks

[GaryP]

Rob, read Larry''s (Instar) post on the Aiptasia thread.

Gary

[Instar]

Aiptasia and hair algae for sure. The natural predator for gulf aiptasia that has no side effects is the Berghia nudibranch.
If its good gulf rock, then it probably has lots of feather dusters that will colonize your tank if they aren't killed off by a copperband. New tank syndrome here. Read and dream about the copperband till next fall, seriously.

[Shark_Bait]

OK ... changing the order
thanks for the advice. Was double posting :evil:


Sorry for hijacking your thread Justin

[SueT]

Hey Gary, here is the site www.MARSHreef.com