1st Anemone!

[GaryP]

Wow! Larry, you are a font of information. I just wish I knew you and there was a MAAST when I got started in this hobby 8 yrs. ago instead of being forced to listen to the intellectually challenged advice I got from the folks at some of the LFS's in SA. This is certainly an example of why an organization like MAAST is so important. Its amazing how much the internet has done for the hobby, especially when it comes to sharing of info.

I have been doing a lot of research on copper bands in the last day or so. I had not seen anything about parasites or the Indonesian wrinkle. I have only seen a few Aiptasia near my Tubastrea but I definitely want to nip this problem in the bud, so to speak. The only coral I have in the tank with the Aiptasia that I might be concerned that the copper banded might nip at is a tubifora that I got from Garf and it is growing like crazy right now. The remainder of the corals are a large leather toadstool, plate coral, the sun coral, a very large open brain, and various mushrooms. After he finishes his job in there I night have to move him to my SPS tanks that also has a lot of zoos and green & yellow sun polyps. What do you feed your copper banded? A prepared butterfly food?

Thanks for all the info. I REALLY appreciate it.

Gary

[Instar]

Joshua
That link to the page about the flat worms also includes great pics of the coral eating flat worms. Hard to see little boogers.
GaryP
Did you mean tubipora coral? Common name?

One of mine was on a roll and sampled a piece of a gorgonian polyp once. He never came back for more. I did see one nip at a little rock anemone from Port Aransas when it was deflated a few times, but, that anemone is alive and well without any evidence he actually was after that and not something on its surface. I have a variety of polyps in with them. There is even one ugly little hard coral that has a sweeper polyp that looks almost exactly like an aiptasia. I've never even seen the copperbands look at the thing at all.

Occassionally I feed them live mosquito larva grown in my back yard. Or frozen white mosquito larva soaked in Seachem Reef Complete vitamins (has a fair amount of Vitamin C). Or live mosquito larva from my backyard, frozen mysis shrimp, marine cuisine, Live clams and/or Live black mussels from the grocery store. All the fish like to get in on that banquet with the live bivalves. You must open them with a pocket knife and cut the shell retactor mussel. Never use one that doesn't close its shell or smells rotten. They cost 20 or 30 cents a piece and are rich in Vitamin A and that keeps the fish from going blind. I did use blood worms at first, but, not sure that was good for the cleaner shrimp. Lost the cleaner shrimp and since there were several events in my tank, I am not sure why. I was suspicious of the blood worms but have no real evidence to support me in that. I used the natural method to get the parasites off them because they can, like any butterfly, be sensitive to copper and formalin. That stuff is a liver killer anyway and I wanted to avoid that. They are always hungry, but, most of the time they have to deal with my twice a day feeding. Now and then they get more from overflow when I feed my tubastrea. They'll eat about anything. They'll take a piece of flake food once in a while just because its in my fingers, but, I haven't tried to get them on that. I don't do too much live mosquito larva because I don't want them to get finicky again. They get the variety just in case I can't get something one day. Like live mussels -they are not always available. Some people have reported copperbands starve after the aiptasias are gone. At first I really had to work on it to get them to eat. I may be crazy, but, at first I was feeding the aiptasia to get these foods in the copperbands mouth. They started on all that stuff with an aiptasia wrap like a pig in a blanket. My copperbands were very thin and one looked like it was literally starving to death. One of them had its forehead get very pinched over the eyes and it looked like death. Today they are fat, active and healthy. They are shipped in pretty bad shape sometimes. I worked with the diver at Reeftopia to get a variety of things in that they could try. Little feather dusters were the only thing that worked well, and of course the mussels but shipped in live from Florida they are about 5 or 6 dollars each. I kept those bivalves (actually turkey wings) alive. Copperbands really love a split open black mussel. One day I got the idea to try live mosquito larva. I used garlic extract the day before to get whatever feeding response going, then tucked some cluster dusters just out of reach behind a coral head to make them nuts. Then in went the live mosquito larva. With the feeding response so triggered and unsatisfied, that started them eating the mosquitos. After a few days I started working on switching them to frozen foods. They still had aiptasia to graze on all day long. I guess it took about a month for them to clean out the couple thousand aiptasias. The only ones left are the ones they can't get to.
So, the foods initially were a quite a bit different than what they eat today. I didn't think they would ever take frozen brine shrimp. One of them wouldn't even eat live brine. I thought that was unusual as they eat tiny crustaceans. They do have variations between different fish. Its not that I wanted them to eat frozen brine, but, it is nice to add a little to their diet.

[Instar]

An additional note about feeding: They really like a plankton shrimp, like mysis only larger. Maybe its krill, but, all I can get locally is embedded in an agar gell of some kind. They don't like that gel too much. The krill in Marine Cuisine is great because it has some substance to it and its not in gel. They love those kinds of shrimp.

[sholzrichter]

This is good to know. I always thought that copperband can't be kept in a reef tank. I thought it would eat all kind of corals. I have some aiptasia in my tank. I have been trying to get rid of them by injecting Calcium into them, but it isn't working. I also heard that Peppermint shrimp will eat them. However, my peppermint shrimps have become my cleaner shrimps' dinner instead. I might have to go buy a copperband.

[manny]

Manny
Small? I have some with near 4 inch stalks and 3 inch tentacle spans. But, I am raising them too. I've had them 2 to 3 inches in a couple tanks. Big or small, they sting the tar out of many corals, small seahorses, small fish and clams. They start out really small.

Larry, the thing I'm seein is maybe like 1 or 2 mm big. It "lives" in a small hole in my mex turbos shell. It looks just like the picture you posted but you can't see the base cause it's in the hole. Is it possible for a baby aptasia to be living on my snail or is it something else?

[Instar]

I have a bunch of pictures of copperbands on my reef along with all kinds of polyps. It still blows my mind at how wrong the "experts" are in the literature. But, they do eat a couple of things that some people like, naturally. I don't really mind if they kill an astrea snail now and then. I'll trade an astrea for an aiptasia any time. And feather dusters, well they just have to be hidden or blocked by some coral orsomething, if I want them in a large reef. My next experiment with them it to see if I can keep a clam in there with them. I have seen it done in a picture. I'll let you know. They don't bother the spondylactiis oysters at all and those are exposed enough at feeding time for a serious bite if it was something they were prone to trying. Hasn't happened at all with mine. I must stress that these are the Indonesian Copperbands.
Manny, if I just had one in a snail shell and thats all it amounted to, I would take the shell out and do something with it until I knew. Lots of things start out small with little polyps that are not aiptasia.
Be forewarned though, it is a trick to get a copperband healthy and converted to frozen foods. You gotta really be dedicated to it. And I wouldn't try to keep more than one, unless you keep a group of them all put in the tank at the same time. The age we get them at usually is pre-puberty and they are serious about being lone rogues at that age. Two of them are likely to fight to the death. This might not hold true in a 500 gallon or larger tank, but how many people have those sitting around?