Butterflies anyone

[angelgirl]

I am looking for opinions on Butterflies, I have been eyeing this pretty copper banded beauty, and am wondering if anyone has had any luck with them I have always been told that they are hard to keep that they usually die of starvation.. I am wondering what ya'll think. And what you feed them.
thanks
Angelgirl :happyfish

 

[tangs123]

feed copperbands anything that they can eat; once they start eating they are a great fish

 

[anonome]

Definately quarantine it to make sure you know which foods it likes. This way you are only feeding this one fish, not the whole tank.....a little too boisterous for them at first. I do not have any copperbands, but have 3 heni's in qt right now. It took them about 5 days to find the food that they really enjoy..mysis shrimp, and marine cuisine. One is a pig, and basicly taught the others how to eat!! This way I know that when they are introduced into the main tank, they will know how to get their food. :happyfish

 

[xdave]

I totally hate replying to threads like this here because it isn't what people want to hear and a hundred people who never had one for more than a year will dissagre with me, but I owe it to the fishes, so here goes'IMHO
Copperbands should only be raised by butterfly experts. Although they are considered to be moderate to difficult, heres the thing, for every Copperband you buy, hundreds will die to replace him. Whenever the distributor I worked for got them in, 50% were DOA. We switched to net caught Hawaiin and Australian only (which no stores wanted to shell out the extra $s for) we still had over 25% DOA. Dont say we had bad exporters because we served 5 states and our volume was high enough that we could could buy directly from the most reputable in the world.
So the moral of the story is, if you fail to keep 1 alive, don't mourn just him, more all the fish that died trying to get to the store. And for all the people ready to say "mine lived", you should mourn the ones that gave their lives so that you could say that.
The preceding statements are
IMHO

 

[joker_ca]

i got one for a customer IMO they're very picky eaters, and are easily prone it ich, and like xdave wrote they ship poorly and most of the time dont recover from the stress of shipping, if u really want one try to find one that is eating and is active, also from what i have heard from friends and at LFS is that juveniles dont fare so well in captivity so if u get one baby the hell out of it

good luck

 

[xdave]

Pheeew, glad somebody aggreed with somethin.
Sorry if I sounded so gloomy, but my heart would just break everytime I opened a box of them.
Heres some tips:
Like joker_ca said, don't get a juvi, I wouldn't say that about any other fish.
Make sure he seems interested in his tank, pecking at decorations and generally foraging around, not darting around, just kinda cruzin'.
Of course colorful and not skinny.
The best thing to do when you see one like that is try to get the lfs to hold him for 2 days. If he still looks good after 48 hours his chances of survival go way up, like at least triple.

 

[dogstar]

I had kept a CBBF for 4 years but lost it to the hurrican last year. ...They must be bought in good condition as said and make sure they are eating or at least searching for food in the store....
They need a large reef tanks with lots of healthy live rock, with lots of life in it because this is what and how they feed. All day and night searching in and out of the live rock for tiny organisums, mainly worms and other macro plankton, that will fit in their tiny mouths. Most will not except many typical fish foods other than live brine or frozen mysis shrimp and these are not really enough for them to be healthy for a long life. A big refugium is best also to help produce the small critters for them to feed on.
This is just for CBBF and the other few ones that can be kept. But many species should not be try or even collected because they just dont make it or need or will only eat more special foods like corals. If your system does not meet this then good luck, if it does, then good luck too.

 

[poniegirl]

xDave I agree, too.
These are without exception (?) wild caught fish, and as such do not understand eating dead food from the water. It is that simple.
Dogstar, what an amazing photo. Beautiful and healthy Butterfly, it was.
Angelgirl, what size is your tank?

 

[xdave]

Oh yeah, I forgot to ask. Dogstar is that a picture of yours? He's awesome.
Yep they are all wild caught, I don't know if any BF has ever been bred in captivity. If somebody knows, I'd like to see the articleabout it.

 

[dogstar]

Originally Posted by xDave
Dogstar is that a picture of yours? He's awesome.
.
yep, was....thanks

 

[joker_ca]

Originally Posted by PonieGirl

xDave I agree, too.
These are without exception (?) wild caught fish, and as such do not understand eating dead food from the water.

almost all fish in the trade are wild caught, the problem with these fish isnt that they are caught in the wild its that they ship poorly and dont adapt well to captivity in a aquarium

 

[angelgirl]

I have a 100 gallon will lots of established live rock