Copperband refuses to eat

[goose42195]

Hello,
I purchased a beautiful Copperband butterfly about two weeks ago. I have offered clam, marine flake, frozen brine, & mysis shrimp, frozen squid, frozen "marine cuisine", all to no avail. I've also tried soaking in garlic. She seems interested, but when she gets close, she turns away. I finally tried some live brine which, happily she ate readily. The problem is that the only fish store that sells live brine is too far to make regular trips. She doesn't appear to be deteriorating at all, which surprises me since she only ate once in two weeks. Unless she picks at the particles once they settle on my rock, etc. I haven't noticed.
All the other tank mates are eating regularly.
Any suggestions?
Thanks,............John.

 

[lion_crazz]

I would either hatch your own brine shrimp, or order brine off the internet to keep her fed until the fish begins taking frozen food. Soak the brine in vitamins so that the copperband is getting at least a little bit of nutrition.

 

[torno]

What was it eating at the store? Can you get live blackworms in your area? The one I had took to them right away, and as long as you enrich them with some sort of liquid enrichment (Selcon, etc.) they're plenty nutritious! If you can get them on this, try adding bits of frozen mysis here and there. Have you tried a clam on the halfshell? Go to a grocery store and buy a fresh clam, then crack off the top shell and set it on a rock. It may go for this. If it does, start mixing in frozen foods with it, and over time it will be completely on frozen. My copperband, however, didn't seem very impressed by this idea, so it only took mysis and blackworms...
Good Luck!

 

[fishfiend]

when i first bought my copperband i was having the same problem.
so i started hatching my own brine shrimp.
i purchased this "brine shrimp hatchery" from my LFS. It costed 10$ and is really easy to use. all you do is add water!
for a while, that what it was living off of, and every other day i would try feeding it other things, like mysis and flake.
well, flake was no good, but after about a week or so it readily took freeze-dried mysis shrimp.

 

[xdave]

So how are all your Copperbands doing now? Alive? If not, how long did they live?

 

[durgeonman]

It might not be a bad idea to but a kit to hatch baby brine shrimp. they are cheap and you can use the shrimp untill the copperband starts to eat frozen foods