Copper Banded Butterfly Not Eating

Jack22 · Sep 25, 2018

I just purchased a copper banded butterfly from my LFS. They had him in the store for about a week. I saw him eat at the store before I bought him (not sure exactly what the were feeding, brine shrimp and mysis I think).

Ate a very small amount when I got him in my QT tank on Saturday, but hasn’t eaten since. It’s a 20 gal QT tank, also have a yellow tang and flame angel in there too. I guess he could be picking food off the bottom or off the sponge filter when I’m not looking. When I put food in he looks at it but won’t eat.

I’ve tried mysis, spiralina brine shrimp, seaweed extreme pellets, nori rubberbanded to a rock, and added a little bit of reef chili to the mix too. I’m going to try some cyclopods with the brine shrimp tonight.

LFS suggested moving him to the DT were he will have more room, but I’m worried about not quarantining him.

Sorry for the long post. Any help is greatly appreciated.

nautical_nathaniel · Sep 25, 2018

See if you can get some live brine to try with it.

lake985 · Sep 25, 2018

Blackworms did the trick for my CBB.

nautical_nathaniel · Sep 25, 2018

I've also heard that you can hide stuff in crevices in the rocks and they will go after it since that's a natural way of foraging for food for them.

Jack22 · Sep 25, 2018

Thanks for the help everyone. I’ll give the black worms a try, my LFS is out of live brine shrimp right now.

Anirban · Sep 25, 2018

They are hard to quarantine and because of their natural habitat they are used to picking up food. You can try blackworm but dont put too much as it can create dirty water. After few days or week you can feed him frozen mysis and other frozen food. They will slowly learn to pick food from water column.

67chevellemalibu2 · Sep 25, 2018

I just got one a little over a week ago. Clams and Nori are working. Haven’t seen it eat Mysis. I know they will eat Blackworms. My LFS says there’s a shortage on black worms.

paphater · Sep 26, 2018

Mine absolutely goes nuts for masstick. The great thing about masstick is you can easily fortify with something like selcon. It's also the only food my Moorish Idol gets aggressive over.

https://www.bulkreefsupply.com/masstick-fish-food-easy-reefs.html

miyags · Sep 26, 2018

I feed mine tiny pieces of raw shrimp. I get my frozen raw shrimp in the freezer section of Walmart, About 9$ for a pound.

GoldeneyeRet · Sep 26, 2018

I would place the cbb in it's own qt.

It wont be as likely to start feeding with the tang and angel in the 20.

Shufflepig · Sep 26, 2018

GoldeneyeRet said:
I would place the cbb in it's own qt.

It wont be as likely to start feeding with the tang and angel in the 20.

I agree. Copperbands are such deliberate feeders that it is hard to get them to start to eat when a tang and a flame are going to consume the food in seconds.
The peacefulness of his own QT may be all he needs to start eating. They always like to study their food for 5 or 10 seconds before they eat which his own QT tank will allow him to do.

Instigate · Sep 27, 2018

Get some fresh clams and freeze them, then cut them into thin slices. Live blackworms are also an excellent choice if you can find them. I agree with the above, he would benefit being on his own or only with very peaceful fish. I don't know if it's possible but he would likely benefit from a larger QT tank. I tried to QT mine in a 20 long and he was super stressed out and not eating well and developed a bacterial infection. Then I moved him to a 40 breeder and he was normal by the next day. I ended up doing TTM with a 40 and a 60. It would also help keep the water quality up, bacterial infections are very common for CBBs. Some people treat with NFG prophylactically.

You could also try some feeders, stick the food in there so the CBB can take his time and the other more aggressive eaters wont eat it all up:

chasekwe · Sep 29, 2018

Sorry I know I know I might be a little late to the party but here is how I got mine to eat.

I knew it was eating previously as it was a DD specimen but when the fish came in for me it refused everything, frozen or otherwise.

What finally worked was taking clams and shredding the meat with a knife so it would be easy to pull apart and move around in the current a bit. This worked basically immediately. As in CBB chasing the clam from the moment it hit the water down to the ground to go after it.

After about a week of clams I started stuffing mysis and other foods into the clam meat so it would float out as the clam was torn apart and the CBB also ate these... after just a few days of that I noticed he was eating the mysis etc out of the water column like the other fish. Didn't even need clams after that, only as a treat.

Bugger · Apr 17, 2019

What kind of clams did you get

Lb71 · Apr 17, 2019

I agree with all the advice you have been given. If you can’t quarantine the CBB by himself get a divider for your tank. The CBB is never going to compete with the two other fish. Look in U- tube for making the feeder, easy to do. That long beak on the CBB is made for getting into tight crevices, if it is healthy it will naturally do this. Fill it with frozen brine, LFS, black worms etc. Don’t leave feeder in there more than a few hours to help prevent NH4 buildup in your quarantine tank. I suspect it is stressed out, esp. with its tankmates.
Larry

Bugger · Apr 17, 2019

Just tried a clam. Little guy diden't go for it. There's plenty food in the tank but no hits. He was eating at the local fish store

Paul B · Apr 17, 2019

Copperbands hate quarantine tanks. They are not a difficult fish at all and I am not sure how they got that reputation, but I know they don't do well in a tank that is not big enough or where they don't have "natural" hiding places like real rocks.

Hal3134 · Apr 19, 2019

My CBB likes frozen bloodworms. It's only been in the tank for a week, so it's about to get it's first crack at a littleneck clam this weekend. I have live whiteworms on order and they should arrive next week.

My CBB so far (in QT with TTM for 2ish weeks, in the DT about a week) has ignored flake, PE frozen mysis, Roger's, and frozen brine shrimp. I've had other CBB's in this tank and others and it just takes a little while for them to feel comfortable enough to eat. A stressed fish is difficult to get to eat.

Hal3134 · May 8, 2019

Well, not surprisingly, my CBB eats littleneck and cherrystone clams. Of course, they are the same species, just different sizes. I just split them open and put both sides into my tank. Pretty much my entire fish population eats the clam, including my cowfish, saddleback butterfly, clownfish, and niger trigger.