Blue striped butterfly fish, Chaetodon fremblii

[norfolkgarden]

Fed more mysis tonight in 2 half cubes, and then black worms.
Butterfly was out a lot quicker this evening while feeding mysis.
Still not quick enough to get any except at the end of the second half of the cube, but the interest is there and he is learning.
Minor pecking at.the purple and green seaweed clips.
No new damage on either stylo frag.

Eating black worms pretty efficiently.

Tank is down to Blue Lights already. Will try to get a pic during daytime tomorrow if it cooperates.

Thank you again for the input!

 

[falconut]

Here's a photo of mine, still not brightened up yet, since lights only came on about 1/2 hour ago.

 

[norfolkgarden]

Here's a photo of mine, still not brightened up yet, since lights only came on about 1/2 hour ago.

Beautiful!

I will be thrilled when mine has that much color!
Still a light grey overlay and hides every time I walk into the room.

 

[falconut]

Just give him time on the hiding. If he's missing out on the food, maybe try dumping it in, in 2 dumps. One when he's hiding and one when he comes out. Maybe even dump the first one to the opposite side of where he is. Good luck with him.

 

[norfolkgarden]

Mystery fish.

Both fish are alive and intact.
Any sign of damage is from my poor photography skills using a cell phone camera to take pictures.
[emoji6]

 

[becks]

Try a product called easy reefs mastick, it’s the first food my copperband butterfly ate, not even frozen before this...when he’s hungry he now looks around the glass where I normally stick it to.

It truly is a fantastic food, you mix it with rodi and any other product you want to add, make a putty and stick it to the glass or rock

 

[norfolkgarden]

Try a product called easy reefs mastick, it’s the first food my copperband butterfly ate, not even frozen before this...when he’s hungry he now looks around the glass where I normally stick it to.

It truly is a fantastic food, you mix it with rodi and any other product you want to add, make a putty and stick it to the glass or rock

Thank you! That is 1 product I have not tried yet. Someone earlier mentioned using that on the munched Stylophora before it became completely naked.
Never noticed it in our local reef stores. or Nutrimar ova.
We have just about everything else available.
Most of the local shops carry a huge assortment of live and frozen foods. Some will have 1 thing and another will have something else.
Between them all we are very fortunate!

It finished most of the 1st larger polyped green Stylophora, but hasn't touched the second frag yet.
It is still grey but out front a lot more, as long as I'm sitting down and don't move much.

Feels worse than a total noob waiting 3 days for the yellow wrasse to come out of the sand.
(Lol, I consider myself a senior noob.)
[emoji3]

 

[GoldeneyeRet]

https://premiumaquatics.com/product...ukaw7KiTTH6VAYQiO4e84rHPIiaS7VxoCfmgQAvD_BwE#

 

[norfolkgarden]

https://premiumaquatics.com/product...ukaw7KiTTH6VAYQiO4e84rHPIiaS7VxoCfmgQAvD_BwE#

Thanks!

 

[norfolkgarden]

Minor success!

This morning before work the fish got a few or the thin cubes of frozen oyster eggs. Blue stripe butterfly came out pretty quickly. Didn't really get any of the first thin cube. Looked like it gots a mouthfull of the second cube.
Then frozen mysis. Again, might have gotten a small bit but didn't look like much. I was just grateful for the interest!

Set up the 3 algae clips with red whole, green sheet and purple sheet seaweed. About 2" x 2" each.
All seaweed was missing this evening.
The clowns, 7/8" blue hippo tang and flame angelfish all like the green and love the purple 2 little fishes products.
Came home to 3 empty clips, but no guarantee who ate what.
Last night blue stripe mouthed a few Xenia, but no visible damage this evening.

Filled the algae clips tonight with purple, red and Seaweed Select green. Blue stripe is working on the third clip of Seaweed Select green right now.
Woohoo!

Blue stripe butterfly fish is out in front, backing off a bit but waiting for me to fill the algae clip a second time. Not cowering in the back of the tank.
It wandered off for the 3rd clip refill, but wandered back.
Waiting to see if there is a stopping point before feeding anyone anything else.
The clowns, 7/8" blue hippo tang and flame angelfish polished off the first clip of their favorite, the purple 2 little fishes product. 2nd clip refill is just sitting there available for nibbling, like normal.

The 3 algae clips are spread out throughout the tank.
Tried switching which products went where, but blue stripe always goes back for the Seaweed Select green.
The other fish always go for the 2 little fishes purple. (Always have.)

Looks like we will be returning 1 of the largest of the 6 turbo snails.
Will see if that is enough to balance things out.
Blue stripe butterfly has been mouthing the rocks on and off, but I don't know what he is looking for in particular. There is no algae to speak of other than coralline.

Bad cell phone pic, you can make out the 4 white spots in a square on the grey overlay.
Looks like 2.5 2" squares of algae was enough for 1 night.

 

[GoldeneyeRet]

That is certainly encouraging!

 

[NB Reefer]

I have found with all butterfly fish I have kept it takes some time for them to feel comfortable in the tank. Once they do they become comfortable and realize how big they are they become voracious eaters. Sounds like yours is on an awesome tract and is going to become a great addition to your tank.

 

[norfolkgarden]

Blue stripe stayed out when I finally fed the other fish slowly. Shaving off portions of the PE mysis cube and feeding both ends of the tank.
Canalus, vegi blend, nothing seemed to interest it but it wasn't freaked out by my hands being in the water and hung around in the front of the tank for 15 minutes while I fed the others.
Blue stripe was happy to scarf up blackworms like a vacuum when it finally came time for that.
[emoji3]

I'm hoping it has finally turned the corner on simply surviving.
Now I just need to make sure it is getting the best nutrition possible.

And get rid of that horrible grey coloring...
[emoji2]

 

[falconut]

Great news, sounds like he's on his way. The color should come with time or at least mine did.

 

[norfolkgarden]

Blue stripe is out often and scarfing down algae sheets and black worms.
Still not quite getting the hang of grabbing frozen in midwater yet.

Rips the algae sheets off of the clip while there is an inch left then watches it float away.
Might try rubberbanding the algae sheet to a dead coral cylinder and see if there is less waste that way.

Thank you again to everyone!

 

[becks]

Blue stripe is out often and scarfing down algae sheets and black worms.
Still not quite getting the hang of grabbing frozen in midwater yet.

Rips the algae sheets off of the clip while there is an inch left then watches it float away.
Might try rubberbanding the algae sheet to a dead coral cylinder and see if there is less waste that way.

Thank you again to everyone!

Great news and a stunning fish, my CB is the same regarding trying to eat in the water column, he now tries too but he’s still quite selective, only because he watched the other fish chasing the food.

I have some Nyos goldpods coming so hopefully they may help, other than that I’ve just brought the largest package of masstick to fatten up my CB

 

[norfolkgarden]

Cobalt Marine Omni was the first frozen food our CBB would actually eat.
It has clams, mussel, krill and cyclops among other things.
It was another 4 or 5 days before CBB discovered the joy of PE mysis.

CBB was the biggest fish in the tank when I added it.
Same with the blue stripe butterflyfish.
Blue stripe is almost twice the size of CBB.
It looks like a monster compared to everything else in the tank.

Based on everyone's recommendations, I think in the future I would set up a 20 gallon tank and add one or two small harmless an intimidating dither fish to go with it.
I'm glad I got to document what worked and didn't work for the next person using Google search but I didn't enjoy this much at all.
With the easy fish I never really feel bad about taking something beautiful out of the ocean because I know I'm willing to do a decent job taking care of it.

This one scared me.
I think I'm past the steep part of the curve but it won't be a real success until blue stripe is finally showing some real pretty colors.

Thank you again to everyone for helping make this a success!

 

[falconut]

Yeah, unfortunately I didn't have much info. other than what the LFS told me on this guy when I got mine either. Care levels I found didn't list as bad, so I gave it a try. Here is a better photo of mine colored up.

 

[Pbh-reef]

How’s the butterfly? Any pics?

 

[norfolkgarden]

How’s the butterfly? Any pics?

Improving, settling in, but still ugly/stressed/evening coloration.

Fat, still mostly eating algae from 3 clips in the tank and live black worms.
Not eating much else.
Lackluster feeding response from frozen in the water.

But sure recognizes black worms! Feeds almost from my finger tips but not yet.
Copperband butterfly will almost jump up for the black worms if it thinks I'm not feeding fast enough.

I think the other feeding responce from the blue stripe when I add different Frozen is just because it is checking for black worms.