Help feeding Copperband Butterfly

[RaSooch]

Hello all,

I recently purchased a 3" copperband butterfly fish and I have done the research on these fish and I know that they are difficult to keep but many have had success with them. I have read that the ones collected in Australia seem to fair better than the others. I have had him for 4 days and he took to the tank with no problem and gets along well with other tank mates. He is swimming well and looks very healthy but does not seem to be interested in anything I offer. I have spoken to numerous people regarding their feeding habits and all keep telling me it is hit or miss with these fish and eventually they will eat. I have offered him Frozen Mysis, frozen Brine shrimp garlic enriched pellets and frozen Cyclopeeze, all without any luck. He seems to only be interested in my feather dusters on my LR. Now that they are all gone he has nothing left to eat. I am considering trying live foods but cannot find anyone local that sells live mysis or live worms. Can someone point me in the right direction or give me some advice?

Thanks in advance

 

[Euroreefer]

Try Live blackworms, the problem with this is theres is a good chance he will eat them, the bad part is this is all he will want to eat once you give it to him.

 

[nycoralguy]

Try using a 1/2 of clam shell, use a netting wrap shrimps in the shell. They'll usually pick through the netting, if the b-fly don't accept it, take out the shrimps so it dosn't foul the water, try it again tommorrow, make sure the fish don't have ick, any specks of ick, it won't eat, becareful with f/w worms in the tank, not good at all for marine enviorment, but it does trigger most fish to eat. Good luck, a very tough fish to get to eat!

 

[Brian65901]

PE Mysis

I got mine to eat using the Fresh Water PE Mysis which I soaked in Kent Garlic and Selcon

 

[juan319]

Try black worms, twice a day to get him to eat, then start a little bit of frozen worms mixed in with a little bit of cyclopes and mysis. He will start competing with the fishes for the food and you will also notice what he is incline on eating. After a little bit of live black worms.
Hope this helps

 

[LongIslandAndy]

Hi,

Buy a few small live clams (little neck or cherrystone) Split it in half and lay half of it in the tank. Very few butterfly's can resist the fresh clam. Remove any uneaten part after a few hours. Some people let the clams sit in a bucket of salt water with an airstone for a few days to purge themselves of anything they have eaten, I just open them and put in. HTH

Andy

 

[SI REEF]

I had a butterfly that would not eat for several days. I chopped up a clam soaked it in Garlic elixer (eco-system) and the fish has been eating since.

 

[Zimwibwe]

The live clams on the half shell worked for me. I Put them in the tank in the morning and leave it there until next morning. Never fouled my tank. The Butterfly and everyone else for that matter loved them. Usually empty shell by next morning.

 

[gatojebv]

Mine did not eat anything that I had to offer for almost three weeks. And I really tried everything. I was resigned to lose him; however, all of a sudden one day he started eating some dried bloodworms and mysis I was feeding my other fish. Now he eats from my hands and he is very happy.
Be patient. And do not overfeed just because of him

 

[Dre]

Where is some Aiptasia when you really need them?