[kyle and craig]

i just bought a copper band butterfly (i know, not the easiest fish, delicate, .....) and i was wondering what to feed it to get it to start eating. i have tried frozen food and live brine shrimp but he won't eat. i have had him for about 3 days. he is only about inch, 1 1/4 inch tall. any suggestions. i know about how hard they are and all that so please don't tell me. iv'e read all the posts here and about 100 websites. thanks

Kyle

[leebca]

I've moved this thread to the Marine Fish: Care, Health and Disease Forum since the topic better fits that Forum.

Thanks for posting!

You shouldn't feel bad about choosing a delicate or hard to keep butterfly. If you want to feel bad, you could feel bad about buying a fish and not being prepared to properly feed it. :slap: Planning a fish acquisition is very important to the success of marine fish husbandry. Avoid spontaneous and 'emotional' on-the-spot purchases. Most places will hold a fish for you long enough for you to prepare the QT and get the right foods. If they won't, then wait. The longer the fish waits without getting the right foods, the lesser chance it will have of starting to eat.

A captive fish doesn't eat because of the stress imposed upon it. The fish isn't eating because you are offering the wrong foods. So keep in mind that with time, if the CBB settles down, whatever it is you happen to offer it on that day, will be the food it eats. Clear? Considering this, you need to ask yourself is there anything you can do to reduce any stress currently on the fish. Was the fish acclimated properly to begin with? These subjects are covered here:
It Was Acclimation, I know. . .
Stress (and the Single Marine Fish)

If the fish is already in your display tank, then another issue will be whether or not the aquarium has matured. This kind of fish needs to be ultimately kept in a mature aquarium. See: The Mature Aquarium

The tank maturity relates to water quality, stability and conditions this fish likes, all things to learn before you invite one home.

The Copperband Butterflyfish (CBB) is best trained to eat in a quarantine tank where it will devote its attention to the owner and not be able to 'run away' and hide so well. Most CBBs die because they were put directly into a reef or FOWLR system. No matter how much/many copepods there are in the display aquarium, it isn't enough to keep the CBB alive and healthy. Thus, they must learn to eat prepared foods the aquarist offers.

You don't mention if the fish is in quarantine or not.

Like the above indicates, they are primarily copepod eaters. Notice the mouth design? That is for getting into tight, small spots to pick out the pods and other microfauna that is on their diet. They are carnivores.

First, after a day of rest in the QT, you want to offer frozen gut-loaded brine shrimp and saltwater mysids. If this goes well, include plankton. Try small, chopped bits of seafood flesh, but don't feed too much of this since the CBB should receive whole foods. See Feeding Marine Fish and Fish Nutrition

Since you've tried brine shrimp, move on to mysids and the suggestions below BUT also reduce the stress on the fish. If the acclimation was less than perfect, the fish may never recover from this stress enough to acclimate to captive life.

Such flesh could be finely chopped: marine raw shrimp, raw sea scallop, or squid. They may like chopped clam, also. A raw live clam, opened without using heat and offered on the half-shell (frozen after opening, then thawed) could attract them into eating.

After the CBB starts eating, follow the above guidelines in the referenced post. Good luck! Post again if you have more questions or want more information not covered above or in the references.

[kyle and craig]

it is in the display tank, it is starting to swim really poorly now. i have tried mysis shrimp and it finnaly worked. it is starting to eat now

[leebca]

Good to hear, Kyle.

[Reefland]

Can't go wrong with mysis shrimp. You could also try some fresh seafood from your local grocery to really give the fish a treat. A freshly cracked clam would be enjoyed I suspect.

[almostdiva]

Try the clam, too! I had a really picky one, and once I gave it fresh clam (whole, thawed, on the half shell -- be careful opening it), it was much more inclined to eat mysis and other prepared aquarium foods. Good luck!

[leebca]

CAUTION: I wrote "mysid" not "mysis." Mysis are freshwater organisms; mysids are from saltwater.

[mistermikev]

I am kind of surprised no one mentioned live brine shrimp. I have been considering a CBB, but haven't made the leap because of how hard they are supposed to be. I have also heard they might pick on anemonies... (i have a flower anemonie for my sexy shrimp). Surely if frozen brine would work live brine (gut loaded) would work better... right? did I miss something? What can you tell me about "anemonie picken" (lee)?

[leebca]

Better is a relative term. What is better is to get the fish eating the right foods the aquarist will provide on a regular basis, as soon as possible. I avoid offering live foods to a recently acquired fish for two reasons. 1) To prevent it from getting into the habit of eating live foods. When the fish settles in and is ready to eat and it is offered live foods, it then (rightly) expects live foods from then on. 2) To avoid having to go through the mess of gut-loading live brine. Since the live (or frozen) brine is not a nutritious food, it serves little nutritional purpose.

Between both these 'reasons' why have the fish hooked on something that basically it can't live on? Offer from the beginning the foods it should be eating and that it will be fed in the future. As a last straw, try live foods. But if the fish is so stressed that all it will take is live (as a live feeding being the 'last resort' scenario) then the aquarist will have a decision to make -- continue live for a long time or let the fish slowly starve.

CBB in display tanks will often eat all the Aiptasia and pods they can find. Then they slowly starve. People think that if they have live rock, they can keep a fish that eats pods. Not. The confines of the aquarium prevents the pod population from recovering their consumption even by one single fish. The exceptions are very large aquariums where pods are protected and given a place to hide from the predatory fishes.

Copperbands do pick at corals. Some don't. It's hard to guarantee one way or the other. They have cleaned my tanks of Aiptasia in a day or two, and then I'll get one that ignores them. Go figure!

There is an improved chance of success (i.e., that the CBB won't bother the Anemone) with a CBB in a tank with one or more Anemones if the CBB was trained on proper foods in a quarantine tank first, then well fed in the display.

The fish are 'pickers' like most reef fishes -- they eat all day and hunt for food all day. In the confines of the aquarium, they sometimes resort to this activity even when well fed. So alas, there's no guarantee.

If the display tank is truly mature with excellent water quality and very stable water, they are a great addition to the caring and alert aquarist in FOWLR and some Reef aquariums. I had one grow to 15 inches in length from 3 inches.

[mistermikev]

15inches... wow. as far as live brine shrimp... aren't they more healthy than frozen? I go to the LFS once a week and get live brine: I get to stare into their tanks for a while and my fish get spoiled. then i just let the bag sit in my tank for two hours while I pour in some dt phytoplankton. I have been thining about setting up a hatchery right off my tank, but this doesn't really allow for gut loading. If you intend to continuously provide the gutloaded live, what is the downside? I have read that the live brine make their way to the substrate and burry themselves... I am not sure why... but I guess this could be problematic for my substrate eventually. most of them never get a chance.

[leebca]

Downsides as they relate to marine fishes:
1. Brine shrimp, live, frozen, or freeze-dried are not nutritious for marine fish. The fish will eat it, but children would eat ice cream for every meal if they are allowed to. It is a human trait to think that live brine shrimp is a treat for their fish. The fish, though, isn't being spoiled, it is being starved. Some old-time marine aquarists in the know refer to brine shrimp as 'water sacks.' I know they aren't that bad, but with all the other 'right foods' easily available, why not choose what's best for the fishes.

2. A marine fish never saw a brine shrimp in its life until it was captured and its aquarist put it in the tank. This is not a natural food for them, in addition to it not being a nutritious food.

3. A feeding of brine shrimp 'fills up the fish' and is taking the place of what could be a nutritious and useful meal. (Using the children theme again -- like feeding children cookies just before dinner).

Our marine fish find it hard enough to get the nutrition they desperately need while in captivity. Feeding them brine shrimp (in any form) is like feeding people donuts, and expecting them to live a long and healthy life on donuts. You can gut-load a donut with 'peanut butter' but it's a donut.

Still, one gut-loaded brine shrimp feeding 3 or 4 meals out of 21 isn't bad. But daily? Not. And no way should brine shrimp be fed to true carnivore fishes. Our fish deserve what they nutritionally need and it isn't brine shrimp.

Read more about the general idea of feeding fish here:
Feeding Marine Fish and Fish Nutrition

Brine shrimp as well as land and freshwater foods (blood worms, etc.) are all useful in the end stages of trying to get a new fish to start eating. Anything goes to get a new fish to start eating. But ideally we try to get the fish to start eating what is best for it and what it should be eating before tempting it with foods it shouldn 't be eating or foods that don't satisfy their nutritional needs.

Regarding live brine getting into the substrate. . .Not much (if any) of a problem. They are not very rich in proteins or fats and they will decay quickly and become part of the detritus in the oxygenated area of the substrate.

The most nutritious of the brine shrimp are just-hatched brine shrimp. The first stage brine shrimp contains a high amount of fats that is useful for the fish. But once the baby brine shrimp grows and uses up its fats (in a couple of days) the brine shrimp resorts to all the downsides mentioned above.