CBB Info, Please!

Sports Girl · #1 03/04/2006, 05:39 PM

I know this question has been asked a thousand times before, but can you guys tell me any important info pertaining to Copperband Butterflies? There is one @ my LFS that is eating live brine, and I would really like to put him in my reef. Is that plausable? Am I dreaming? Any tips/experience/second hand info will be greatly appreciated. I would like this little guy to have the best home possible...(Just for reference, I have mostly softies [cabbage, leather toadstool, button polyps] and one brain and goniopora) Thanks guys!

marrone · #2 03/04/2006, 09:18 PM

CBB will do fine in your tank but it needs to eat more than brime shrimp to survie. It wouldn't bother any of your corals but may pick at feather dusters and worms, a lot of people get them to eat aiptasia.

You need to get them to eat some other food like mysis shrimp or flake. They're very shy and most just die of sarvation.

SDguy · #3 03/05/2006, 12:47 AM

I agree. Make sure it's eating something substantial like mysis, or some other frozen food (I think flake is hoping too much

) Otherwise, I'd pass unless you are really dedicated to keeping one of these fish.

Sports Girl · #4 03/05/2006, 08:09 PM

What I should have asked is: what can I do to encourage him to eat in my aquarium? Has anyone had any luck with garlic? Or maybe something else...? I'm looking for ideas in case he won't eat. Do they like food suspended in the water column, or should I feed a sinking food? Please, any comments are welcome, thank you!

ozfish · #5 03/05/2006, 08:26 PM

The best recipe for success with CBB's is to make sure they are housed with appropriate tanks mates. Aggressive feeders will make it hard for a CBB to obtain enough food from the water column, something they don't usually do in the wild but should soon learn, especially if you have 'dither' fish i.e chromis, anthias etc. Having a well established, productive refugium linked to your system will help a lot too.

marrone · #6 03/05/2006, 08:53 PM

Just try feeding it mysis shrimp at first as it should eat that. Try soaking the food in vitiamins & Selcon. Also try feeding Cyclop-eeze.

From there you can try some of the formular food, just break it up into pieces.

dougc · #7 03/05/2006, 09:09 PM

On ReefCentral and elsewhere, many people recommended using live black worms as a first food. They are sold for freshwater use and do not live for more than 30 seconds in salt water. They are more nutritious than brine shrimp and copperbands will respond well to them. My CBB, who is still in quarantine, goes nuts for black worms. I am also using live brine shrimp, but am starting to mix in some frozen mysis with it. The fish is suspicious and some ends up on the bottom in favor of the live brine shrimp, but when I come back a half-hour later, the mysis is gone.

I think that this species needs a period of quarantine, mostly to allow it to adapt to captive fare without competition. My CBB is now feeding aggressively enough that it can probably compete in the feeding frenzy that is my tank, but was quite tentative for the first week or so. I want to have it fully weaned onto frozen foods before I move it to the display tank. Dry foods would be even better, but I won't hold my breath waiting for that to happen.

dhoch · #8 03/06/2006, 09:38 AM

I have one -- about 3 months now, and he's doing great.

After a bunch of research (before I obtained mine) I found that they are primarly meat eaters so what I did is the following:

I purchased mussells at the store and split one open enough for the CBB to get it's nose into, but the other fish could not.

I then attached the mussel in a place where teh CBB frequented and hoped.

Sure enough he figured out there was food there and then started returning regularly to his feed station.

I have since updated the feeding station with a "worm feeder" (a conical shaped object with a suction cup to attach to the glass). I put a bit of mesh on the top and put food in there (he will pretty much eat anything meaty (shrimp, squid, mysis, mussels)). He can peck at it and the other fish can't get at it.

You can see it attached to my front glass if you go to my web site, go to the tank cam page and move the camera all the way to the left (you'll see it there).

Dave

Razzagas · #9 03/06/2006, 02:56 PM

is a 60 gallon too small for a CBB?

Torno · #10 03/06/2006, 07:32 PM

It depends how stocked you are. I've seen people keep them in a 55 before, but they had few tankmates (2-3 maximum) and they need a long tank for swimming room. I'd say with an appropriately stocked tank and adequate filtration that a 60 would be just fine.

dochoot · #11 03/07/2006, 11:05 AM

My lfs said that they had thier cbb eating mysis and cyclop-eeze. I drove out there and they would not eat while I was there. I actually showed some restraint and decided to pass unless I can find one eating well at the store.

I would like to get one but I know my limitations on care. As of now all of my fish are really easy.

Carrera07 · #12 03/07/2006, 01:24 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by ozfish
The best recipe for success with CBB's is to make sure they are housed with appropriate tanks mates. Aggressive feeders will make it hard for a CBB to obtain enough food from the water column, something they don't usually do in the wild but should soon learn, especially if you have 'dither' fish i.e chromis, anthias etc. Having a well established, productive refugium linked to your system will help a lot too.

i agree with ozfish, i think its very important that there are not too many aggressive eaters in the tank.

Sports Girl · #13 03/07/2006, 05:32 PM

Thanks all for help; I am going to leave this fish to the professionals. Thanks again for all the useful info!