CBB eating

Ralph823 · Feb 4, 2024

I know I'm probably driving y'all crazy BUT I have a new update. as of today he is eating the following foods ferociously

- Live black worms
- Live white worms
- Live brine
- Frozen blood worms

He currently picks at and spits out most but does eat some of the following

- Frozen gut loaded mysis
- Frozen gut loaded brine
- Frozen PE mysis

I have the white worm and black worm cultures going, because the blackworms are easier and quicker to culture in my opinion, I took a 10 Gal aquarium with lava rock substrate and loaded it with 5 portions of worms, this should get me buy two months until the white worm culture is big enough to start feeding.

I am also going to the market today to pick up some clams see if I can get some sort of saltwater meaty food into his diet.

with the way this CBB is eating is fairly certain he'll be okay.

Aquariumaddictuk · Feb 4, 2024

Ralph823 said:
Hi all,

I'm sure there are plenty of threads on this but I wanted to start my own instead of waking up an old thread again.

I just got a Copperband butterfly this weekend which is a fish I have had some interest in having but I knew how difficult they can be, I've been able to keep other butterflies like the pyramid for a few years and ended up getting rid of him because he nipped at some of my corals but I've always thought the cbb is a whole other animal.

that being said I was at the LFS early and they were feeding their fish (live brine) and this CBB was going ham so i asked if he ate frozen and they said "we can try" when they put the mysis in he went for it not as aggressive as he did the brine but still I watched him eat. so I made the possibly poor but executive decision to take him home and for 50 bucks i couldn't beat it.

anyways I took him home and have him in a 1.5 gallon critter keeper/Acclimation box in the DT but he has not wanted to eat the last two days. would it be easier to get him to eat in the DT and just release him with the rest of the fish or do I keep trying to get him to eat in the acclimation box. I've tried Mysis and live blood worms things that I get from standing water in my back yard that I feed all the fish one or twice a week. maybe @Paul B can Chime in here.

In the 180 DT i have hundreds if not thousands of feather dusters that have taken over my entire sand bed and rock work that he can eat until I get him eating worms and frozen foods.

also Before I get wrecked for not quarantining and just tossing him into the DT in an acclimation box, I tried quarantining fish for years and could only get 1-2 years out of supposedly long lived fish, I stopped quarantining about 5 years ago and have been able to keep fish for much longer, I have and orange shoulder tang that is going on 5 years, and that royal gramma in the back of the pic is going on 7 years from my old 32 bio cube that I never quarantined so it works for me. I've had an Achilles tang in this tank with no issues other than aggression which is why I no longer have him but he lasted 4 years with me un quarantined

I've had one for a few days myself & so far he's wolfing down mysis.
What I have observed is little & often works.
Mine doesn't enjoy big feeds & seems happy to supplement his rock picking with 5-6 small feeds of mysis a day.
He has been triggered into feeding by mysis added in front of powerhead though mimicking live food.
May be worth trying this

Ralph823 · Feb 4, 2024

aquariumaddictuk said:
I've had one for a few days myself & so far he's wolfing down mysis.
What I have observed is little & often works.
Mine doesn't enjoy big feeds & seems happy to supplement his rock picking with 5-6 small feeds of mysis a day.
He has been triggered into feeding by mysis added in front of powerhead though mimicking live food.
May be worth trying this

My issue with this is I have a gang of 4 tangs and a fix face that’ll out compete him with small feedings, so I’ve got it down to where he eats the live worms right out of a turkey baster

Aquariumaddictuk · Feb 4, 2024

Ralph823 said:
My issue with this is I have a gang of 4 tangs and a fix face that’ll out compete him with small feedings, so I’ve got it down to where he eats the live worms right out of a turkey baster

I'm trying a masstick & mysis paste tomorrow in a few spots on rock work in places that only his snout can reach to combat this myself.my gramma is way more agile & outcompeting him so if works I'll update

Ralph823 · Feb 4, 2024

aquariumaddictuk said:
I'm trying a masstick & mysis paste tomorrow in a few spots on rock work in places that only his snout can reach to combat this myself.my gramma is way more agile & outcompeting him so if works I'll update

Mine didn’t want to touch the mastick but I’ve heard some people that swear by it

Ralph823 · Feb 5, 2024

@Paul B I have a question since you're the worm guru can the CBB survive long term off of live worms, I have him picking at Mysis and brine and he's eating frozen bloodworms pretty aggressively but nothing like he does live, I was just wondering if live worm are healthy as the majority of his diet? or until he eats other prepared foods more aggressively

Aquariumaddictuk · Feb 5, 2024

Ralph823 said:
Mine didn’t want to touch the mastick but I’ve heard some people that swear by it

Masstick with mysis worked brilliantly.
It worked equally well as a standalone food so it may be a case of perseverance.
I have found in past that if a tricky to feed fish has a certain area it moves to in that moon lighting/slow down phase-popping some sticky food or anchored meaty food in that area can trigger feeding

Ralph823 · Feb 12, 2024

Update on this fish, He is eating everything I put in from the water column aggressively, even caught him pecking at the nori clip today along side the tang gang.

foods he is eating well and aggressively
- live black and white worms.
- live brine
- frozen blood worms,
- frozen mysis (the small parts not the whole PE mysis as I feel they are too big to fit in his mouth)
- Frozen gut loaded brine
- live clam on the half shell
- Nori??

OrionN · Feb 13, 2024

JMFreefer said:
I got mine Qtd from Dr reef he went straight into the display
He only ate clams on the half shell at first wouldn’t touch anything else
After about two weeks of only clams I got some mastick he didn’t touch it
So I made a few batches of mastick mixed with clam shavings and mashed it onto an empty clam shell after he realized there was clam in it he started to eat that
Made another batch of mastick with clam, frozen mysis, brine and red worms in it on the half shells
He ate that for awhile, then out of nowhere started eating all those from the water column when feeding my other fish
It happened overnight out of nowhere
And now he eats always no matter how I feed him. I also add selcon,vita chem and garlic every once and awhile
Mixing things he liked with new foods worked for me , he’s fat and seems healthy, at least to me. I am still a rookie at the fish game
Dr reef feeds mysis and brine but he didn’t touch it at first

That is a very nice female CBB. If you want to demonstrate how fat he is in picture, a head on picture (thickness of the fish) or having top light (smooth of a well fill body) will demonstrate that.

Ralph823 · Feb 13, 2024

OrionN said:
That is a very nice female CBB. If you want to demonstrate how fat he is in picture, a head on picture (thickness of the fish) or having top light (smooth of a well fill body) will demonstrate that.

It’s so dang hard to get good pics of fish

Paul B · Feb 17, 2024

Ralph823 said:
@Paul B I have a question since you're the worm guru can the CBB survive long term off of live worms,

They probably can as that is what they eat in the sea. But remember, in the sea they eat a lot of worms and a lot of different types of worms. Those worms in the sea were all eating different foods with different bacteria. Copper Bands in the sea will eat anything alive small enough to fit in their tiny mouths.

I think you should try to get him to also eat other foods like clams or even mysis. You would need an awful lot of worms for one copperband.

Ralph823 · Feb 17, 2024

Paul B said:
They probably can as that is what they eat in the sea. But remember, in the sea they eat a lot of worms and a lot of different types of worms. Those worms in the sea were all eating different foods with different bacteria. Copper Bands in the sea will eat anything alive small enough to fit in their tiny mouths.

I think you should try to get him to also eat other foods like clams or even mysis. You would need an awful lot of worms for one copperband.

Hi Paul, thanks for the response, he’s officially eating everything I throw in including the nori for the tangs I throw in every couple of days. He is especially loving the black and white worms from my cultures and also eats clams mysis and gut loaded brine

Ralph823 · Mar 20, 2024

Update! he eats everything and even bullies some of the other fish including the tangs lol he will eat anything i put in there straight out of the water column including pellets (I only fed pellets because I ran out of frozen and didn't have time to go get)

jtf74 · Apr 14, 2024

Nice!

OrionN · Apr 14, 2024

Ralph823 said:
It’s so dang hard to get good pics of fish

That is a nice fat CBB. Here is mine with a beer belly

My pair in QT tank. I just got the male 2 days ago.

Ralph823 · Apr 15, 2024

OrionN said:
That is a nice fat CBB. Here is mine with a beer belly

My pair in QT tank. I just got the male 2 days ago.

Mine is OBESE lol hammers the black worms and any frozen food 3/4 times a day, he's even the first one to the Nori clip and even eats pellets from the auto feeder while I'm at work, maybe I have the Miracle fish lol. next challenge is the morish Idol, I've had one three weeks now and he's a hoss that eats anything even eats Nori from my hand.