Preparing CBB for display tank

Gobi-Wan · Dec 12, 2020

Hi all. I have had a copperband in QT for 2 weeks. It took a week to get it to eat clams. I have also tried several types of frozen food and actually cultured black worms in a freshwater tank for several months in prep for this fish.... which isn’t the slightest bit interested in them. Nevertheless I had success with clams now which probably lends itself to training the fish best on prepared foods. I haven’t been able to get the fish to eat masstick or frozen food out of a clam shell yet but it certainly does associate the shell with food and inspects anything in the shell repeatedly but doesn’t seem ready to pull the trigger yet. How have you had success transitioning to other foods?
Next question: treatment. The fish twitches it’s head in one direction, seemingly in conjunction with the expectation of food. When I add food the behavior starts immediately, and now it starts when I sit down in front of the tank. Is this a common feeding response? I have freshwater dipped the fish twice, once at first into due to a couple spots of what I thought to be ich, the second time a week later because of the twitching. Neither time resulted in anything floating around in the water afterwards. I started the fish in 1.0ppm chelated copper and worked up to 2.0. It has been 2 weeks today. The fish definitely has a few lympho spots on its tail. There is also 1 fin tip on the dorsal that is either damaged or has a lympho spot, or small infection. The last 4 days I have dosed the QT with ruby reef rally and the dorsal spot doesn’t seem to have improved. It is slightly darker than the other tips and looks a little fuzzy. I have kanaplex metroplex and focus on hand. Should I try dosing a clam with these? I have been feeding fresh frozen clams that I let thaw in the tank. The fin tip in question is the first or second tip
Thanks for any advice!
Thanks for any help!

Jay Hemdal · Dec 12, 2020

I would not dose the clam with focus et-al, there is NO way the dose can work out right. Add to the unknown food/medication/fish mass ratios, you would also have the food rinsing out into the tank water.
CBB are tough - they don’t handle quarantine well, yet they develop many diseases quite readily.
The fin tip looks like the skin has been pulled back from the spine- commonly seen in fish that have been netted, but if your fish hasn’t been, not sure what could have caused it.
Jay

Gobi-Wan · Dec 12, 2020

Jay Hemdal said:
I would not dose the clam with focus et-al, there is NO way the dose can work out right. Add to the unknown food/medication/fish mass ratios, you would also have the food rinsing out into the tank water.
CBB are tough - they don’t handle quarantine well, yet they develop many diseases quite readily.
The fin tip looks like the skin has been pulled back from the spine- commonly seen in fish that have been netted, but if your fish hasn’t been, not sure what could have caused it.
Jay

Gobi-Wan · Dec 12, 2020

Jay Hemdal said:
I would not dose the clam with focus et-al, there is NO way the dose can work out right. Add to the unknown food/medication/fish mass ratios, you would also have the food rinsing out into the tank water.
CBB are tough - they don’t handle quarantine well, yet they develop many diseases quite readily.
The fin tip looks like the skin has been pulled back from the spine- commonly seen in fish that have been netted, but if your fish hasn’t been, not sure what could have caused it.
Jay

Thank you! I did net the fish before the first freshwater dip and wondered if this might have been the cause. Is there anything I can do to help it heal? The fish is tolerating copper and eating clams. It has been 2 weeks, but I was very slow moving from 1ppm to 2ppm so it has only been in therapeutic copper for a little over a week. I had an ich outbreak about 9 months ago, and quarantined all my fish leaving the reef fallow for the 76 days or whatever it was. This is why I have been quarantining everything in copper for 30 days since then. What would you recommend with the CBB? Should I take the chance? It is a healthy weight with only the slightest hint of a depression behind its head, and about 3.5” long at my best guess

Jay Hemdal · Dec 12, 2020

Personally, I would leave it in copper for 30 days. The spine doesn't need treatment unless it worsens, or spreads to adjacent spines - and then, an antibiotic bath would be the best choice.

The main objective is to get it to feed on other items. Do you have access to live mussels? Those work a bit better than clams, as they are softer. You've tried mysids I bet, but have you tried dicing them into halves?

Jay

Gobi-Wan · Dec 12, 2020

Jay Hemdal said:
Personally, I would leave it in copper for 30 days. The spine doesn't need treatment unless it worsens, or spreads to adjacent spines - and then, an antibiotic bath would be the best choice.

The main objective is to get it to feed on other items. Do you have access to live mussels? Those work a bit better than clams, as they are softer. You've tried mysids I bet, but have you tried dicing them into halves?
Jay

I have tried mysis without success, I have seen the copperband eat a couple of brine but not enough to justify number of them that go uneaten, at least for now. I even threw a couple of live mysid shrimp in from my sump but I have no idea if they got eaten and they probably didn’t last long in the copper. I wonder if I could keep live mussels into my 20g freshwater black worm setup? It only has one grain layer of gravel so the mussels couldn’t bury themselves.

Gobi-Wan · Dec 12, 2020

I would like to figure out a sustainable way to feed the CBB where the other fish can’t access it. Right now I freeze fresh clams and when I drop them in they thaw and open very slowly allowing the fish to use its snout. This would be ideal if it weren’t so expensive to feed a clam every day. What happens when you drop a live mussel into saltwater?

Jay Hemdal · Dec 12, 2020

Gobi-Wan said:
I have tried mysis without success, I have seen the copperband eat a couple of brine but not enough to justify number of them that go uneaten, at least for now. I even threw a couple of live mysid shrimp in from my sump but I have no idea if they got eaten and they probably didn’t last long in the copper. I wonder if I could keep live mussels into my 20g freshwater black worm setup? It only has one grain layer of gravel so the mussels couldn’t bury themselves.

Sorry, I meant human food blue mussels, they are marine.
You might try posting a CBB feeding question over in the reef fish forum. For 10+ years, I’ve only acquired Australian copperbands, and so I don’t have much recent experience getting reluctant ones feeding....
Jay

Gobi-Wan · Dec 12, 2020

Jay Hemdal said:
Sorry, I meant human food blue mussels, they are marine.
You might try posting a CBB feeding question over in the reef fish forum. For 10+ years, I’ve only acquired Australian copperbands, and so I don’t have much recent experience getting reluctant ones feeding....
Jay

I sure do appreciate your response anyway Jay. I will try that.