Copperband butterfly

melev

melev

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[Okay, what is your opinion? I was about to buy a baby Copperband Butterfly to put in my 55g to eradicate my aptasia, and the LFS was adament not to put it iin my reef because it would eat all my corals.

I've known a lot of people with CBB in their tanks, that are gorgeous and eat out of their hands. So before I make a huge mistake with my setup, do you see a problem with my addition? I know they eat featherdusters and I can live with that. Do they have issues with cleaner or peppermint shrimp? Nassarius snails? Or anything that you see on this page?

http://www.melevsreef.com/pics/0704/55g_contents.html

Because if you don't, I might go buy that guy after all!]
 
[Marc,

CBB is one of my favorite fish. It is the most beautiful fish in my tank. I take advices from people in here and not to order it online. I waited and bought one from local pet store after 10 days of arrival for acclimation. I asked them to feed brine shrimp and only one out of 10 eats brine shrimp. The price was 30 dollars.

I have aptasia problem as I listed in here for help. My peppermint shrimp doesn't do anything but HIDE and shy.
I feed my fish everyday and CBB didn't eat anything or mess with anything. I was told by Russ Dubois to starve them a little and sure it worked. My CBB got hungry and it started to eat all small aptasias. Later it went for the big one. My CBB didn't touch my featherduster, nor messing with shrimps, snails. It only eats brine shrimp and bloody worm with garlic. I read an article on reef central stating CBB could peck on your feather duster and possible anemones. I have one flower rock anemone and 1 giant feather duster but they are both open wide and CBB didn't seem to bother them.

It is so worthy to have one. Hope this helps Marc.]



Edited By reefgazer on 1090065845
 
[Howdy, Marc!

Everything I find says that the Copperband don't so much eat your coral - they are hard to keep because they are picky eaters! If you have Aiptasia, they eat it, then die because there isn't more of it.

I would make sure the one at the store eats something besides Aiptasia, or it will starve.

There have been reports of the CBB eating feather dusters (probably because they LOOK like aiptasia, to the fish), but that is a 50/50.]
 
[Well adding a bff is always iffy but for the most part I think the copperbands seem to be well behaved citizens of the reef. I havent seen anyones(that I know) take out any of their corals, but spaghetti worms and featherdusters seem like fair game to them!
If he is fat and healthy looking I would probably go pick the little fella up!]
 
[Sure you already know my opinion.

They can pick on clams, maybe 1 in 100. Most I have read is that they *might* go after clams put in after them. Clams in your tank before the cband are going to be ok 99% of the time.

BTW your large duster is maybe 50/50 and you can kiss these goodbye.

many_feathers.jpg
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@Amanda wrote:
[If he is fat and healthy looking I would probably go pick the little fella up!] said:
[PLEASE MAKE SURE HE EATS FROZEN. I cant say it enough, if not you will be flushing a dead cband in a couple weeks.]
Click to expand...
 
[I hope the baby one will make it Marc, the smaller ones seem to have the most problems making it. But as far as an overall fish, they are great. And even my wife misses ours that died during the recent castrophe and can not look at his picture. You will have no feather dusters after any length of time, but you will also never have any problem with nuisance apatasia. One time Steve gave me a small frag of Organ pipe coral that I wanted to try. Well the CBB must have thought it was new feather dusters to try and he demolished it. Though he never did eat it, just pulled it all apart. The only time he ever looked at a clam, was when Steve brought over a sick clam that ended up dieing the next day. I had to build it a little box to keep it in, he would have went after that one. I think he could smell it was dieing and had no defenses. But I had four othes that he never touched.
I can not stand losing fish and losing my copperband was worse than losing anything else I have. As soon as possible I am going to replace him. My tank would not be the same without one and only hope that the new one will be as friendly as the old one.]
 
[I was at an LFS the other week and was looking at their CBBs. They mentioned that most other butterfly fishes will also eat aiptasia. It was the first I've heard of that. But I think most other butterflies are not reef-friendly?

My last CBB lasted about 6 months. He took care of my aiptasia and then started working on the small dusters and eventually cleared them. Never touched any of the corals. He never adapted to any of the frozen nor dry flakes I tried. I wished I had tried the garlic-soaked trick on him.

If you have tangs, watch out when you add a CBB. My yellow tang harassed the CBB for a good 2 weeks before they became buds. It was scary during those 2 weeks.]
 
[After reading your experiences about CBB. Man, I think I am very lucky. My yellow did chase my CBB when first introduced for about a week but now they are buddy. My CBB get brine shrimp like machine and it is getting faster chasing brine shrimp when I feed them. I hope it eats well and last as long as I wish. I enjoy watching him every day. I call him, Silver bell.]
 
[I'm going to head up to the store and see if it is still there. My son has aptasia in his 29g and I could start it in there for now and see how it behaves. There are two GSM Clownfish that I'm hoping will ignore the new guy, plus the eel I got from D.M. Snails are disappearing, as did my Cleaner Shrimp and maaaaybe a Purple Pseudochromis.]
 
[Too late. That gorgeous fish is in my son's tank cleaning out the baddies.

When he's done in there, he'll move to my 55g. It was eating frozen food at Fish Paradise, and they'd had it for a month according to Mr Lee.

After a slow acclimation, I added it to the tank and it immediately started hunting down featherduster hitch-hikers. I'm hoping when those are gone that it'll go after the aptasia.

Btw, I did see the snowflake eel this evening, but the Purple still is out of sight. I think that mean fish is gone. :Oo:]
 
[The CBB is already friends with the maroon clowns. :wwww:

This picture is from last night, when the fish was just added.
cbb_071704.jpg
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