Copper Banded Buttlerflies

Those guys are SOOOO difficult to qt and get into your system. I would guess that 99.9% of them imported die within 2 weeks of getting to the local fish stores. I too think they are beautiful and would like to own one myself, but I killed one years ago and was crazy enough to try again last year. Lost both even though the second time I had a dedicated well cycled qt set up and ready for it. I personally would encourage you to save your money and the heart ache, but that’s just my two cents.

did you try store bought clams in a half shell? that can get them eating rather nicely

ps sorry wrong forum

Tim mine ate like a PIG for days. It ate everything including aptasia, mysis, pellets, and all. Then I woke up on my birthday and saw it was sick, went and took a chemistry exam and when I came back it was dead.(yeah was a crappy day) You’ll hear of a couple of people on the net claiming it is just an eating thing and they found a way around it, but there are 10X as many people who are posting they lost fish and that’s just the people that will admit to having killed the fish and actually made posts.

I know they are pretty and I know it would be cool if you actually could find a way to keep one and in a way prove yourself an advanced hobbyist and a million other reasons make them enticing… yeah I said my piece.

I would guess that 99.9% of them imported die within 2 weeks of getting to the local fish stores. I personally would encourage you to save your money and the heart ache, but that’s just my two cents.

+1 best left avoided by everyone but the most advanced hobbyiest with very mature tanks!

ironically enough the CBB was one of my first fish. i picked him up at Just Fish and at least had the sense to ask to see it eat first. it thrived in my 75g for over two years before i lost it in a tank crash. i was a total noob and my tank was a mess with HA everywhere and NO3 levles god knows how high. it was a FOWLR with a picasso trigger, lunar wrasse, half-black dwarf angel, and the maroon clown i still have today. pretty funny when i think about it but i never lost a fish and all of them thrived and got along great.

Copperband butterfly fish are probably one of the most delicate of the possible reef tank fish you can get, so much so that most of them come already loaded with most of the parasites you dont want, which is why they need extended QT process (at least 8 weeks in a QT, all while practicing feeding) Tank mates are another serious consideration, shawn your experience you listed is enough to kill hardy fish (with a tank crash and all) and its death could easily be attributed to that and not it being easy to “kill”

this fish can live for many years in a reef tank with all the right considerations, the most common failure is acclimation, this fish has a progressively hard time acclimating to each tank it moves to from ocean to capture to fish store to QT to main tank. each time it move its more likely to die, as much as a QT is pretty needed its just one more tank this fish has to endure and can cause its demise.

rather than scratching this fish off ones list to buy, i’d rather inform them to research them as any livestock and know what your going into headlong. a mature tank with the right tank mates is a good start and plenty of creatures that it could feed on just as you would only add a mandarin to a tank with a healthy copepod population.

wow you guys know how to bust my bubble. was thinking of this exact fish since i lost my tangs to flat worm exit. so i guess i and you have changed my mind. funny though they say they are somewhat lower on the difficult chart. ok more research… >:::

that all said you should see the fantastic selection of new fish at the store, i want them all lol

[quote=“martinfaimly, post:6, topic:2576”]
wow you guys know how to bust my bubble. was thinking of this exact fish since i lost my tangs to flat worm exit. so i guess i and you have changed my mind. funny though they say they are somewhat lower on the difficult chart. ok more research… >:::[/quote]

they are only hard for the unprepared, put a blenny in a algae-less tank and it’ll die, put a mandarin in a rockless tank and it’ll die.

figure out its diet and prepare your tank for one. in my opinion they are probably worth the effort if you know where you are at.

[quote=“TimH07, post:8, topic:2576”]
figure out its diet and prepare your tank for one. in my opinion they are probably worth the effort if you know where you are at.[/quote]

Seems you know better then me. When I got my first one the tank I put mine in was crawling in tiny crustaceans and over 3 years established. Mine ate like a pig both in the LFS where had been for weeks and in my tank as well. I acclimated things very careful back then. It was practically the only fish in the tank with the exception of some engineer gobies that just hid under the rocks. At that time I did not qt, so it did not go through two tank transitions in my hand.

Still think no one in the club should be trying CBB.

Well i wouldn’t say i know better as i’ve not kept one, but i did some serious reading on them while considering one and i’d say its unfair to tell people they will die no matter what in a tank.

I have tried 2 CBB and had no luck with them. The first one just refused to eat anything and starved itself to death, and the second one, when I first got it, started feeding it some black worms an it was eating them just fine. Later on it was eating frozen shrimp and I had it for a few months, and just like Jon said, one day just died. Almost bought one of the CBB from DPA last night, but Charlie looked it up in a book about being reef safe, and trying really hard to resist, I LEFT WITHOUT IT.

I’ve met one couple that had luck with one and had it for years.(depending on how you define luck in this situation.) They were really into their tank and wanted to convert to reef, but the fish would pick at corals any time they added them. It actually become the biggest fish in the tank and was a bully. Constantly terrorized its’ tank mates and they couldn’t add any new fish. The couple could have easily been die hard reef geeks, but didn’t have the heart to get rid of the fish. They were just stuck.

I wonder if Shawn ever had any corals in with his while he had it.

shawn your experience you listed is enough to kill hardy fish (with a tank crash and all) and its death could easily be attributed to that and not it being easy to "kill"

i think you missed my point Tim. The crash definitely killed the CBB along with the angel when my son dumped something in my sump. I was only relating an experience that i know to be the exception when it comes to the CBB.

omg what did he dump in the sump?!?

One of the things that always makes me cringe is when I read something that appears to be personal experience, but then turns out to be secondhand information.

Sometimes this is perfectly acceptable especially when one is dealing with questions of water parameters or quality issues. When it comes to keeping fish that are know to be very difficult I find it hard to take the advice of someone that has never kept one himself. When I am researching a fish for purchase I want to hear from people that have kept one either successfully or not. If I would have listened to the general consensus on Oxymonacanthus longirostris (orange spotted file fish) I would have never given them a shot. Most people will still tell you to avoid these fish and my opinion would be the same unless you are prepared to give them the attention and dedication they need.

I suspect getting a healthy copper band would greatly enhance the odds on keeping it longterm, for many difficult fish it is the way in which they are handled before you get them that makes a big difference in your success or failure. JMHO

i have maintained a copperband for over 6 months in my tank. i had to give him away for destroying my 400 dollar acan and a rose coral. i fed my LOTS. 3+ times a day. For the first week he didnt eat, i tryed everything but garlic. and that was the trick. i soaked mysis in garlic and he attacked it. before he started to eat he got ich which went away a few days after he started eating. very diffucult fish but it can be done. monitor very closely. pick a HEALTHY specimen. when i bought mine he wasnt eating but i was so hell bent on getting a CBB i took the risk and picked the “best” one. after i kicked him out the DT he lived in the fuge for 2 months eating nothing but pods.

all mine ate was zoecon enriched mysis, arctipods n reef plankton. i didnt qt. acclimation was temp acclimation for 15 mins n then added 1/2 bagg of tank water to bag wait 10 n fish in

i guess i was getting at the fact that just because some people don’t succeed at keeping a fish of a specific type, that you should not tell others never buy one. i consecutively lost 3 royal gramma’s in the same month, that doesn’t mean i should tell others they are impossible to own and never try one, just research any purchase

I moved some comments from a Vendor Forum here for better viewing.

:BEER

I’ve never tried one. But GARF wrote this article a few years back on how they use them for aptasia control .