Chelmon rostratus-Copperbanded Butterfly

[Tim Marvin]

They are reef safe unless your reef consists of feather dusters, and anemones...

[Instar]

Of all the CBB's I've ever had, the only kind of anemones they eat are aiptasia and the true glass anemone that is about a quarter of an inch and clear. Since I quit trying to raise aiptasia in my reef, I don't mind if they eat those at all. In addition to little feather dusters, they will eat astrea snails when they can get them. I just put a few extras in my reef. Still have plenty left. So, astrea snails, feather dusters and aiptasia. That is far less than a yellow clown goby will eat and far less than a bicolored blenny I have. I have anemones in with mine and they never get bothered so long as they are reasonably healthy. He picked at one of those Corpus little jetty anemones when it was shriveled up once, but, still have that anemone growing nicely today. Also have a rather large Florida Flower anemone. The CBB never goes near that one and hasn't once. They do hunt for pods, little worms and eat a bristle worm now and then. You can always tell when they got a bristle worm as they shake and dance as if to say, "Wow - that was HOT but GOOD!" A well done reef has plenty of these things so an occassional one taken by the CBB doesn't hurt anything. I have a colony of mysis that has gotten established with the introduction of about 10 shrimp into the reef. These fish don't wipe the populations out so long as there are lots of shells, rocks and rubble for hiding and breeding pods, etc.

[Sherri]

Beautiful Minh! Sounds like he is doing great so far. Good luck.

[OrionN]

Here is the picture of my baby CBB eatting a steamer clam. Please don't mind the glass full of coraline algae and other algae. I have not clean it for weeks.

[Nano_Steve]

fantastic lookin little guy u have there minh!!! ive got one that i bought from tim awhile back(about a month and a half) and i put him in my 30 gallon. he has not messed with my teardrop maxima or any of my anemones(before they died due to the move :( ) larry really helped me out alot with him and i was able to wheen him over to frozen(he goes ape for bloodworms) hopefully i can get some pix soon too!

take kare, steve

[OrionN]

Larry,
Do you feed your CBB anything special? How do get them to start feeding? My tank is large so my CBB have things to eat until he start to eat the clam. I guess in smaller tanks, they see the clam and start to pick on them sooner. A friend of mine open oysters and clams for his CBB. He even feed the CBB out of his hand using shrimps and mysis shrimps.
Minh