Pairing butterfly fish

[ShrimpChipGal]

I will try to convince hubby to take heni .

[SDguy]

Oh great, he's going to blame me!

[SDguy]

Update: This is getting tedious. Feeding the YLN is annoying, since everyone else eat pellets. I'm finding it difficult to keep the smaller YLN fat, since it obviously only eats SMALL pieces of food. Othwise, they get along still. Of course, during feeding, there is some aggression still, but nothing major.

[AuroraDrvr]

Interesting that the small YLN is struggling to accept larger foods. How large (or small in this case), is it?

[LukFox]

Have you tried crushing the pellets with something blunt? My small YLN will go after the bigger pieces in the resulting powder.

[SDguy]

The small YLN is maybe 2.5", not including the nose It's not so much tat he is struggling. It's more that he just needs to be fed SO often, since he only picks out the small pieces. Meanwhile, with all the other fish gorging themselves, needless to say, by the time I'm done, the tank is VERY well fed. Goodbye water quality

[SDguy]

Originally Posted by LukFox

Have you tried crushing the pellets with something blunt? My small YLN will go after the bigger pieces in the resulting powder.

I think the problem at this point is color. Everything he eats is white (mysis, scallop, shrimp, etc). Brown pellets and red flakes don't even get noticed. I'm going to try introducing blackworms to the diet. They are dark colored. Maybe mix in some pellets with them...

[LukFox]

Originally Posted by SDguy

I think the problem at this point is color. Everything he eats is white (mysis, scallop, shrimp, etc). Brown pellets and red flakes don't even get noticed. I'm going to try introducing blackworms to the diet. They are dark colored. Maybe mix in some pellets with them...

Really interesting that he picks out color! Good luck with the black worms.

[Dakota Reef]

Peter, I'd highly recommend making yourself a "butterflyfish feeder". I'm convinced it helped me keep this Long Nose Butterfly for over 7 years.

I simply drop in a cube of food and it allows my butterflys to pick for an hour or two, depending on the type of food. This is simply the clear intake tube from an old Powersweep powerhead. (the only thing those powerheads were good for).



I recently added this Copperband but initially he wouldn't swim to the top of the tank to feed from the feeder like the LNB would so I temporarily rigged up another tube feeder lower in the tank and he quickly figured it out.



The Copperband started with clams and shrimp but now eats any frozen food I put in the feeder. The LNB always ate any frozen food I put in there. I feed a combination of Ocean Nutrition cubes, Rod's Food, PE Mysis and slivers of frozen scallop. They are eagerly taken. The only downside to using Rod's Food or PE Mysis is that as it thaws it sometimes floats out of the feeder and other fish snatch it up.



Both butterflys are fat and healthy even with the world's greediest naso tang cruising the tank. They would never survive long term if they only ate from the water column. In fact they're so conditioned now that when I drop loose food in the tank they'll immediately swim over to the feeder expecting a meal.

[cecilturtle]

Nice looking BFs Dakota. No aggression at all from the two?

SDGuy: FWIW, my LNB never eats pellets, but will eat everything else...escpecially flake Cyclopeze. Bloodworms are the only food I can add to the water and other fish avoid.

[SDguy]

Nice feedign tube! I will definitely give that a go. Great idea, BTW!

[Dakota Reef]

cecilturtle: The only aggression between the two occurs from the Copperband when he realizes the LNB is getting the last of the food. He seems to have to look at food for a few seconds before he pecks while the LNB dives right in. Occassionally he gets frustrated and flares his dorsal. Usually lasts about 10 seconds and is over.

Much more aggression from my Yellow Tang toward the Copperband.

[SDguy]

Man, they didn't even look at the live blackworms

[cecilturtle]

Dunno about blackworms...I use Ocean Nutritions Bloodworms. Might be same thing, but I think blackworms are freshwater food...I'm thinking angels and cichlids and discus.

[SDguy]

Originally Posted by cecilturtle

Dunno about blackworms...I use Ocean Nutritions Bloodworms. Might be same thing, but I think blackworms are freshwater food...I'm thinking angels and cichlids and discus.

Technically, both are freshwater. Bloodworms are actually insect larvae. Blackworms are true worms. Butterflies usually go nuts for them. Looks like I'm going to have to start some serious weaning...

[SDguy]

Good news... both butterflies are eating the blackworms. And I think my theory was correct. Now that they are eating dark colored foods, the larger one has been trying pellets, finally!!

[ShrimpChipGal]

Such dedication! Congrats!

[SDguy]

Originally Posted by ShrimpChipGal

Such dedication!

Coming from you that's quite a compliment

Welcome home, BTW! We need to get food and drinks, and you can show me all your pictures

[rssjsb]

SD Guy - How do you feed blackworms? Just drop them in? I'm assuming that they'll die pretty quickly if they're not gobbled up right away.

[SDguy]

Yeah, they die almost instantly. They float around and get eaten.

[mhltcob]

I have a pair of 5" banded butterflies Chaetodon striatus that were caught off of the coast of West Palm. They lived fine together during 6 weeks of quarantine and on diplay in a 1000 gallon tank for another 6 months. One of the two started acting very aggressive towards the other. I let it continue for about a week until I noticed damage to the butterfly. At that point the butterfly started to have a thinner body condition and minor scale loss. I built a cage and placed it in the system to seperate the two. Thinking that it might be temporary I tried to reintroduce them together but it had the same result, and therefore have moved one of them to the 400 gallon refugium. I have not seen this before in a confirmed wild pairing.

[SDguy]

Interesting! Perhaps one began to not thrive, and the other sensed this, and therefore became aggressive towards it? I've seen this before...conspecifics being aggressive to sick individuals.

[mhltcob]

I think it was courtship behavior but I am not sure.

[SDguy]

My YLN are still pretty aggressive during feeding.... unless someone has experience of what a true pair does during feeding, I doubt they are a pair at this point.

[Big E]

When I had true pairs they weren't aggressive to each other during feeding time & generally hung out together.

I've seen BF's that aren't pairs be a bit dominate but it's usually just nudging of the anal fin area & not out right attacking/chasing the other fish during feeding time.