Urgent Long nose butterfly help

I added a long nose butterfly on Friday to my newly cycled tank. My clown, royal gramma, and blenny are doing fine and eating. The butterfly has not eaten since I put him in Friday and this morning I noticed white spots on his fins but none on his body. Help!

 

Without a picture hard to say for sure but Marine Ich is a real possibility. Fish is stressed from acclimation and not eating. Seems like a lot of fish for a newly cycled tank to me. I would check parameters.

Long nose butterflies really need an established tank, they are not as delicate once they make it through acclimation but hard to keep in a newly established tank IME.

With that said not uncommon at all for newly aquried fish to not eat for several days.

Good Luck.

 

I always quarantine any fish I get in a hospital tank before it goes into the display tank. That way I can watch to be sure everything is ok and give it individual attention so all is well when it goes into the display tank.
Not all fish eat as soon as you get them due to the differences in the way they handle the stress of the move.
To see if the spots are ich or not, you can do a freshwater dip, matching temperature and pH of the tank the fish is in, with the fresh water.
If it is parasites, chances are they will all fall off in the fresh water, if they are not embedded.
It's possible that these are nothing but I prefer not to take a chance so get a good clean container or aquarium and put the fish in there after the FWD so you can try other foods to stimulate the 'fly to eat again.
Things you can try are live brine shrimp, preferably enriched, or live clams from a supermarket or fish store which you can cut one open and put half in now and save the other half in the refrigerator for later.
Whatever he doesn't eat of the clam in a day, remove before it deteriorates the water significantly.
I hope your tank is large and the biological filter is strong because that is a lot of fish to add all at once to a newly cycled tank.
Keep checking for any trace of ammonia as waste starts to build because there is a possibility that the biological filter may not handle this new load all at once, and you don't need burned gills on top of everything else.

 

Agreed with what Corailline said above. Also, IME butterfly fish can be a challege to get to eat sometimes. What type of setup do you have? Good luck and post a pick if you can.

 

when my tank was at 5 month old I added a pakistan butterfly but it did not do well, end up dying because of ich... IMO butterfly can be really hard... Also depends on individual fish...

 

How big is the tank? So your tank is newly cycled and you added a clown, gramma, blenny, & now a butterfly? What was the time frame for adding these fish?

 

It's a 30 gallon with 30 lbs of live rock and 40lbs of live sand. I waited just over a week after adding the rock to get the three little guys. Waited another week before the butterfly.

I will do another Meth Blue dip with the butterfly and see what happens.

 

I think it is best to allow at least one week between introduction of each fish.

You create another cycle when you add fish too quickly.

You're at four fish now and that is probably the most fish that system will safely allow.

I would see if the fish actually has a disease before you stress it more by dipping.

If you can provided a picture of the fish that would be great. And if you have not done water change lately I would do a small one of about 10 %.

 

Have you checked your water params prior to adding any livestock? Long Nose BF get up to 9" so I wouldn't recommend them for a 30g tank, you'll need a system 75g+ to support one comfortably. As it grows it will get cramped and will most likely not stay healthy. They're also unpredictable in a reef tank so corals may also get picked on if you go that route.

If you're params are stable I would swap the butterfly out for something that could grow comfortably in that tank size, that stays 3" and under at adult size.

 

My water params where 0 ammonia, 0 nitrate, 0 nitrite, 8.4 ph, 1.023 salinity. The LFS said a 30 gallon would be enough for the butterfly and so did a couple books I saw. I know if I ever go reef he'll have to go--but that will be down the road a bit.