The Copperband Butterfly

nautical nonsense · Jul 6, 2019

This is my recent experience.
I had a beautiful species that lived in my 100 gallon reef for nearly 3 years and acclimation is the key to this species. After long 3+ hour acclimating they must then learn to eat from the water column. Any thing newer than a 1 year old established reef system and this species is doomed. Tank mates must be very calm and aggressive fish will kill a CBB over night.
I recently purchased three CBB from live aquaria. 2 went straight into reef DT (no quarantine) and one went to quarantine with a Koran Angel.
They are all three a success so far. Long acclimating and patience is the key.
Getting them to eat???
Frozen Brine shrimp 3-4 times a day lightly. Pumps on and off during feed. Gets their interest. I thaw the shrimp cubes in a of cup of tank water for 15 min. Suck it into a medical syringe and despense slow in front of fish. Pumps on pumps off multiple times. On about day three he is looking for the syringe.
Unfortunately this paper thin fish must be introduced in this manner or it's most likely doomed. Aggressive tank mates are not tolarated by this species. It will not fight for food. It will instead just hide and die.

Ron Reefman · Jul 6, 2019

CBB are slow to eat and tank mates that gobble up food quickly will put a CBB at higher risk of long term starvation.

Scdell · Jul 6, 2019

Guess I got lucky with mine. I've never had to do anything special to make him/her eat.
I have aggressive fish in the tank. Damsels. He hunts the food down with the best of them. Ravenously. Never turn my pumps off.

Aquarist76 · Jul 11, 2019

I've always had terrible luck with these guys. Just this week I lost one. It was one of the "hardier" Australian variety I got from LADD for $200. It was alive and fine for 6wks which was the longest I've had one live. It was eating great and no signs of disease. Still it kept getting thinner and thinner and I came home one day and it was dead. He loved blood worms and brine shrimp (no black worms available where I live). I've tried 4 or 5 times with these guys with no luck. I think I'm throwing in the towel. Sad because they're about one of the most beautiful fish there are in my opinion.

jsvand5 · Jul 11, 2019

I have pretty good luck with them. The one I currently have is right up at the surface with the tangs at feeding time. Finding a healthy one to start with is the hardest thing with these imo. I’d never buy one online unless it was a from a smaller company that can show you the fish eating aggressively before shipping.

nautical nonsense · Jul 14, 2019

Update on the three CBB. Live aquaria purchase.
1 went into reef soft Coral tank 200 gallon with a scopas Tang, green spot mandrin, Fire shrimp watchman gobie, and a swallow tail hawk. The hawk has been the challanch however the CBB has held his own and eating great. Tank is starting to show less aptasia.
2 went into sps with 2 tomato clowns hosted by a 16" bulble tip, a cleaner shrimp and a lemon peel angel. The angel was a challenge however the CBB looks great and eating well.
3 went into quarantine with a coran angel and a cleaner shrimp and has been doing the best eating and hunting. I move rocks with aptasia to the quarinquar for him to hunt from other tanks daily.
Just wanted to give the update as my 14 day warranty expired today.

Phycodurus · Jul 14, 2019

glad to hear they are doing well.

i have three myself right now in separate isolation tanks (non-prophylactic quarantine). i picked them up after watching a trio of CBB in a large frag tank at my LFS co-existing peacefully.

my feeding strategy is live blackworms on alternate days (frozen foods on the other day). so far, they readily go for the frozen brine shrimp and frozen mysis. soon, live blackworms will be every third day. i will point out that the very first week was only live blackworms.

at each feeding, i soak the worms in liquid vitamins for a good 10 minutes beforehand.

suta4242 · Jul 14, 2019

Interesting thread. IME CBB are not hard to keep if you

1. ensure they’re not continually bullied
2. any disease issues are sorted out before they hit the display
3. you have a feeding plan eg for when the aiptasia runs out, for when other fish outcompete the butterfly etc... Ideally alternate food sources are offered before reaching the DT unless it’s a big display tank with lots of live rock.

Whatever you get them feeding on is moot unless they get plenty of food throughout the day.

The problem is the fish slowly atrophies and wastes away if these conditions aren’t met, and accounts for most of the losses people have. I know it’s an unpopular opinion but if you take their needs into account they can be a very durable fish in the right environment.

Hope that helps.
Angie