Getting Copperband Butterfly to eat

fishymaster776

fishymaster776

Member
help , i got a copperband butterfly yesterday, i saw it eat in the store, and its perfectly healthy in my tank cause it swims around alot and doenst look sluggish. my water params are salinity 1.025 , ph 8.1 trites 0 trates 0 amm 0 calcium 425. oh yea i tried feeding it live brine fro m the same storei didnt see anything.. frozen mysis... nothing it kinda picked a bit a formula 2 flakes which was weird. help!!
 
jmesmcm

jmesmcm

Member
You can try ading some garlic to teh food but most likely just needs to acclimate further. When I got my copperbanded I saw it eat at the store but then decided not to eat the next three days before starting to eat again.
 
djnsocal

djnsocal

Member
They really like to pick at worms (feather-dusters) and other small critters. They will clean a tank of anything tasty pretty quickly. I would have suggested you try using Live Brine to get their attention and then switch to something easier to feed with more nutritional value. But, you've already tried that. Don't give up. He'll get hungry eventually. I used to put a bit of Formula 1 or 2 inside a shell so they'd have to pick it out. Try to get them to eat a variety of foods... the more the better. I don't think this is an easy fish to have... most tanks/people can't handle their nutritional needs and they die off after a few months. There are other reasons he isn't eating... like stress. So give him a few days or a week more and see. Just because you don't SEE him eating, doesn't mean he isn't eating something he found in the tank when you weren't looking. Maybe he's FULL. Good luck though, quite a beautiful fish!
 
kelly

kelly

Member
I bought one about 2 1/2 weeks ago, it lasted about 3 days and I found it on the carpet. I would have expected the firefish I bought at the same time to possibly jump, but not a copperbanded butterfly... My wife wanted me to buy another this past weekend, but I just got some red hermits and snails to update the cleanup crew.
I hope you have better luck than I did.
 
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