CopperBand Butterfly experiences

[hayabusa2003]

Hi all,

I've been reading a lot of conflicting articles about the Copperband butterfly fish and whether they are "reef-safe". Some say they're reef safe and the only difficulty is to get them to eat frozen foods. Others say they nip at stony corals... was wondering if anyone here had any personal experience with keeping one?

Thx!

 

[MadReefer]

I tried a few when I had fish only tanks. I could never get one to eat no matter what I fed it. Needless to say they wasted away and I refrain from buying them, even though they are pretty.

Mark

 

[reefsandrotts]

never a problem here with the 1 in my reef

 

[Jcurry@wesketch]

I had one for about a year. Cleaned my tank of aptasia, feather dusters, worms. Ate frozen PE Mysis exclusively. I never saw it pick at anything but I keep soft corals, LPS & gorgonia. Like everything else I think the key is getting a healthy one in the first place.

 

[Carlo]

I've had a few over the years in different tanks. They are hit or miss fish. Some will pick and other won't. It also helps to keep them pretty well fed. They will typically pick at LPS (Large Polyp Stony) polyps, feather dusters and fanworms.

CBB need prestine water conditions. They probably require cleaner water then any other fish you are likely to own. If you can't keep delicate sps corals pass on the CBB as it usually won't live either. You tank probably needs to be a minimum of 6 months old to have the fauna needed to have this good water quality. It's not just about test kits. Example, if you have brown diatoms on the glass of your tank develop within a couple days of cleaning the glass you won't want to get the CBB. If you have cyano outbreaks you probably won't be able to support the CBB. Both of these are telltale signs the water isn't good enough.

The main advice I'd give is to insist on seeing the fish eat mysis or other healthy food at the lfs before buying it. Some it seems (butterflies in general) just will not eat no matter what you try. So seeing it eat in the store is one big hurdle out of the way.

The other thing you want to do especially with a CBB is to get a healthy fish from the start. Don't even consider one that is smaller then 4". They are just to delicate. 5 or 6" would be even better but 4" should be the minimum size to consider. Some other types of fish can be purchased when the health is questionable (especially when you have good QT setup and can feed them well) but CBB and butterflies in general aren't one of these fish. Unhealthy CBBs seem to go no where but down. They are highly stressed in capture/shipping etc and need to be handled with "kid gloves" for quite some time. A lengthy QT period is a very good idea.

In the store look very closely at it and watch it's swimming behavior. It should be smooth and graceful and not "darty". Look at it's eyes to make sure it doesn't have a glazed look to it. Carefully look at all fins. If you see any white goopy spots on the fins pass on the fish. The white goopy stuff sort of looks like "sleep from your eyes" in the morning. It's not marine ich and can be wiped off the fins with your fingers if you are gentle with them. However, it's a telltale sign the fish is probably very stressed. Best bet is to keep waiting for the right CBB to come along.

That's all I can think of at the moment. Hope it helps,
Carlo

 

[Carlo]

Thought of a couple of other things. CBBs require feeding at least 3 times a day of frozen mixed foods. It's important they get crustacean flesh as well as mysis for their diets.

If you can try and get an Australian CBB instead of the typical indo-pacific CBBs. The track record on the Australian CBBs is a lot better.

If you need help finding one let me know. I know a couple places to get nice healthy ones.

Carlo

 

[hayabusa2003]

thanks all, for your input. This is one of those times where I was able to resist an impulse buy and actually research a fish before I got it..glad I did. I'll probably setup a species tank for butterflys later on, with some leathers and shrooms.

 

[Carlo]

Glad you could resist. Find the right one and you'll be happy and have a much better shot at keeping it.

Carlo