copperband butterfly

dano · 07-11-2005, 08:37 AM

anyone had some of these befor? i read up on them and saw they like to eat taisas. they are also quite good looking.
any thoughts would be great.

also i found this black stingray looking thing after about a year. i have a pic at home ill post later. its has to fealers at the top and glides real slow across the rocks. any ideas untill the pic comes along?

amcarrig · 07-11-2005, 08:46 AM

I keep one in my reef tank in hopes that it would eat the anemone majanos. No such luck so far I'm afraid and it's been in there for about 2 months. Be prepared to lose any and all tube and other worms in your tank as copperbands love to snack on them.

Sounds like you've got some sort of nudibranch/flatorm in your tank from the description.

leanlow · 04-13-2006, 02:30 PM

hey, my 55 gal. tank was about 60% full with aptasia, glass anemones, i purchased one and it was shipped to me, but it died really fast. I think it was really stress out about being over nighted from cali. to nashville, TN. I then went to my LFS and saw one, i asked how long they had had this fish in. It was around 2-3 weeks. So i purchased it and put it in my tank. It took it awhile to start to eat, couple of hours, but once it did it was amazing to watch him eat. It has now been 2 weeks and it takes me about 2-3 min. to find one aptasia in the tank. Make sure your water is good though.

JustPhish · 04-27-2006, 08:35 PM

I too use them for pest control. I have found they can be very hit or miss as far as survivability in captivity. I used to go to one wholesaler and buy the ones that looked the best. I found they soon perished. Then I went and looked for those that were grazing the rock...no matter how poorly they looked I would take those ones and so far...success. I have found them to be pretty mellow. Mine are currently all housed with a vareity of fish from clowns to tangs.

The other critter you mention definitely sounds like a nudi or flatworm. I remember seeing a brown/black one in my own tank a long time ago that had to be all of 2 inches wide and three inches long and no thicker than three sheets of paper.

Bruce · 04-27-2006, 08:48 PM

Although I have never owned one of these fish, I do know about purchasing somthing for a tank because of a function it might perform. Unless there is a 100% chance it will do what you want it to do, make sure you want the fish even if it doesnt. Like if somone gets an emerald crab to eat bubble algae, and it doesnt and they are mad lol. Its a lovley fish though