Fragility of Copperband BF

[amonhen]

Over the last 2 years, I have gotten 3 CBBs; all have died suddenly shortly (within 2 weeks), despite the health and survival of all other fish in the tank. I thought of various reasons, and eliminated several. The last one died in a fairly new tank (4 months) with excellent water parameters, all friendly tankmates (green chromises, maroon clowns, lawnmower blenny), was happily eating frozen food (glassworms and bloodworms) as well as picking live food from the rocks/sand at will. He had a small abrasion on his side that appeared to be healing. Then, over the course of 24 hours he developed some redness on his dorsal fin and mouth and died.

I have done some searching on RCC and read about plenty of people who have had trouble with this species. One guy even bought one from The Marine Center in Dallas, which has an excellent rep, quarantines its fish for 2 weeks before selling, and his seemingly well-adapted CBB died suddenly as well.

The only thing I can think of is that this may be due to cyanide poisoning during collection. The Marine Center does offer a net collected specimen for no extra charge--is this worth a try? Is there something I am missing? Is it hit or miss and I have just been unlucky? Any feedback appreciated; besides the aiptasia control, I think this is beautiful fish, and some people seem to be able to keep them just fine.

--Jeff

[rvitko]

If you can find an Australian collected specimen they seem to do better but they are also comparatively pricey usually $35-$50. All butterflies are a bit more fragile than most fish and very sensitive to medications. Unfortunately most holding systems have low doses of copper even when holding butterflies and this seems to be a stressful situation for these fish. I don't think Cyanide is as much to blame as it used to be, cyanide is not used much anymore from what I have read it is largely replaced by MS-222. MS-222 is a novocaine type chemical and is probably not toxic in all but extreme doses. Net caught is the best but it is not the norm as most fish stay close to safety and can dart into a cave or coral head to escape capture. I think when dealing with something like a butterfly simple things like transport, holding conditions and method of capture cumulatively add up to place the fish in jeopardy with or without the use of cyanide.