Copperband Breathing Fast

[cbayer]

I just purchased a copperband and during acclimation he was breathing really fast. Is this normal? I put him in the tank and havent been home yet to check up on him. Any ideas or anything I can do. For the acclimation process I put him with the bag in the tank and add half a cup of water every five minutes.

[alton]

Moving fish is always stressful especially this time of year because we get used to the colder climates and think it's great when it's sunny and 60 outside. The problem is while we are driving our fish in the bag of 78 degree water is dropping in temperature. Your acclimation process sounded fine. I try to follow a simple rule, if I don't have at least a half an hour to acclimate my new fish when i get home I won't buy one, I will wait till I have more time. I am sure he will be fine when you get home, just check your temp.

[brewercm]

Copperbands are also a very hard fish to keep and unfortunately have a very high death rate when transported and first introduced. I went through several at different times that just didn't make it until I finally got one that has been with me now for several months.

[SueT]

I have had my copperband for going on 7 years now and only 1 time has the fish been sick, but the time it was it had rapid breathing and then began hiding. It did this for close to 2 weeks and then came out and was fine. To this day I don't know what was wrong with the fish.

Just make sure the fish is not anymore stressed and be sure if you can to get it to eat something. Mine loves PE mysis shrimp. Others I've seen feed blackworms.

[Ed]

Ditto on what Sue said, get it to eat. Mine loves PE Mysis and also eats live little neck clams, and green mussels (Live or frozen). It also helped that Richard and Mark (CB Pets) had this one eating PE Mysis before I picked him up.

[Bill S]

Ditto on the above. I have 2 CBB now, one in each tank. It was the 3rd one on the first tank, and the 2nd one on the 2nd tank that thrived. It really stinks that the mortality is that high... You would think SOMEONE would develop a better way. How much would you be willing to pay for a CBB (for instance) that was out of a process that had a 10% mortality rate rather than a 50%?

[eddie]

I have a cbb for about 2 weeks now... I am having a hard time getting it to eat. I noticed Sue mentioned blackworms. Where do you get them? Will other fish eat these worms and are they good for other fish? I thought I read somewhere to feed CBB right after the lights go off, any thoughts?

[SueT]

Eddie, I feed my copperband PE mysis and it loves this food. I also feed enriched brine shrimp. I was quoting someone as I have never seen these blackworms, but lots do feed them. The fish seem to love them too, I just have never seen them in any of my LFS's round here. You need to try as much as you can to get this fish started eating. Once they're eating they usually do ok. I think mine's been that 1 in a million fish since I've had it for 7 years next month. Good luck!!