Copperbanded butterfly

Finally got my copperband a couple of weeks ago. I was shown that it was eating frozen as well as live foods in the store. Since I got him home he has not been eating much of the frozen. I have noticed that it picks at zoas at night which I dont mind they grow fast enough to be food for such a beautiful fish. do they eat pods? My pod population is huge so Im hoping thats what its living on.

 

Try different types of meaty food. See what he becomes comfortable with and stick with that. They also are known for eating aiptasia but not pods. We have one in my mothers tank and its doing very good but it took sometime for him to get comfortable competing for food with other fish. If possible try to isolate him and see if he takes food that way. Could be an option.

 

The one I keep now was a little difficult to get started. You can take a smaller rock, drill holes in it, and stuff the holes with various meaty foods. It really helped mine get started. Mine takes mysis, squid, clam, scallop, and oyster.
They are not known for typically eating pods. Tube worms make up the majority of their natural diet.

 

I heard some of them eat aptasia. Mine wont touch it. Ill keep trying more frozen foods and hope for the best. In the mean time will they live on a diet of zoas?

 

It picked the tank clean of tube worms in short order. Ill try stuffing a rock for it.

 

They are very sensitive with their environment as well. What size tank? Was it netted by either the LFS or you after acclimation?

 

unfortunately it was netted which I later read could be the end of my poor fish. its in a 40 gallon right now. seems to be very well adjusted other than the eating issue. im going to try some live brine today to get something in it and buy me some time

 

For a copperband, it's much better to place the fish in a quarantine tank and then feed it.
It will come around a lot faster than when there are other fish competing for foods.
I put mine in Q and fed it gut loaded live brine to be sure it had enough nutrition to carry for a bit, then started to mix in frozen brine along with the live, and finally quit adding the live and only the frozen. Eventually got it to feed on frozen mysis as well.
Once it was eating well, I kept it there for the duration of the 8 weeks I quarantine fish for and then placed it in the tank.
Had no problems since then and that's been a lot of years.

 

Good news it is still willing to scarf down live brine like crazy so that should buy me the time feeding those once a week to get it onto frozen food. Ill start mixing frozen in with the live.