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Copperband butterfly fish successfully bred

JVU said:

UF/IFAS IRREC Successfully Aquacultures the Copperband Butterflyfish, Chelmon rostratus! – Rising Tide Conservation

www.risingtideconservation.org www.risingtideconservation.org

Hopefully they can scale it up and getting them reliably eating normal foods, would be a huge win
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Seems like getting them to eat should include feeding them aiptasia hopefully. Seems likely they may not hunt aiptasia as much if they are well fed on prepared diets. Hopefully I’m wrong and they just go to town on everything (besides corals) and survive in captivity better.
 
JVU said:
Yeah but I was also thinking about how so many die in captivity because they don’t eat anything
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you’re not kidding on that. If it doesn’t eat in the store.... don’t buy it’s gonna starve itself.

having said that I went through a few copperbands. I only ever got them to eat black worms out of a strainer.

The last one was doing great for
Months until he mysteriously died. He ate the night before too. This perplexed me !
 
Coral reefer said:
Seems like getting them to eat should include feeding them aiptasia hopefully. Seems likely they may not hunt aiptasia as much if they are well fed on prepared diets. Hopefully I’m wrong and they just go to town on everything (besides corals) and survive in captivity better.
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Copperbands normally don't eat Aiptasia. Their natural food are worms they pick out of crevices. They only pick on Aiptasia because they confuse them with the worms they normally eat. Some seem to find them tasty enough to continue going after them but most don't as it isn't a natural food for them.
 
JVU said:
Yeah but I was also thinking about how so many die in captivity because they don’t eat anything
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Getting a healthy Copperband to eat isn't an issue. They go after everything worm shaped with a vengeance, especially if it moves (tubifex, bloodworms, blackworms,...)
The problem is that most Copperbands come in seriously sick or with internal damage due to improper handling (internal organ damage due to being squeezed too hard), use of cyanide (use of this is widespread in Indonesia where most come from. It causes liver damage that can kill the fish with a delay of weeks or even months), or not being fed properly between capture and arrival at the store (extensive fasting causes atrophy of the digestive tract and stops them from feeling hunger).
 
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I train my CBB to eat from a feeding pouch. It is a closer method to what they do naturally (pecking at rocks) rather than eating from water column. I even had 1 that would eat from my hand. Longest I've had a CBB is 2 years.
 
ThRoewer said:
Copperbands normally don't eat Aiptasia. Their natural food are worms they pick out of crevices. They only pick on Aiptasia because they confuse them with the worms they normally eat. Some seem to find them tasty enough to continue going after them but most don't as it isn't a natural food for them.
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I’m not disagreeing with you, but the reason a lot, if not most, hobbyists want them is to eat aiptasia. So it would be good if they incorporated it into their diet In captivity
 
Very cool!

Interesting about CBB food preference. Never knew that.

I think with the Aptasia eating nudibranchs taking off a bit, perhaps demand for CBBs will drop off.
 
rygh said:
Very cool!

Interesting about CBB food preference. Never knew that.

I think with the Aptasia eating nudibranchs taking off a bit, perhaps demand for CBBs will drop off.
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It's one of those fish that I've always wished that we as hobbyists pushed for other reefers not to buy. They should not be imported. I can't imagine more than one or two percent survive, and that's not something we should participate in. That being said -- I love mine, but I received him from a respected reefer.
 
Bruce Spiegelman said:
It's one of those fish that I've always wished that we as hobbyists pushed for other reefers not to buy. They should not be imported. I can't imagine more than one or two percent survive, and that's not something we should participate in. That being said -- I love mine, but I received him from a respected reefer.
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I would disagree with such blanket "should not be imported" statements.

The same was said about Regal Angels and they are actually quite simple when you get small and healthy juveniles that were captured properly with nets or traps. I have a pair of Maldives Regals and they are my least picky eaters in that tank, yes, even less picky than my large Amphiprion (and they literally eat shit)! I raised the male from a tiny 2 inch juvenile and the female was still a juvenile of less than 4 inches when I got her (I wanted a smaller one but this was the last one ATR could get me before they temporarily shutdown in 2019 due to COVID). Both Regals eat flakes, pellets and whatever other foods I throw at them. And they are greedy eaters.

The issue is rather that large adult fish, who often have been set in their ways and food preferences, should not be imported but only small adults and juveniles. That way the environmental impact is minimal and the survival rate of the captured fish get up.

Ideally, all fish and especially juveniles of difficult species should be quarantined and conditioned on site in the country they where collected. If only juvenile specimens are shipped that are healthy and conditioned to eat you will likely have a near perfect survival rate and also save on shipping cost. And if the losses in the destination countries go down the mark-up to compensate for those losses can be reduced.
The way it is now, the fish we get are often beyond recovery because they have gotten too sick or gone for too long without food to recover. The same fish would have likely done well if treated against diseases in time and being conditioned to captive feeds before being shipped.
And doing it this way would also drive a nail into the despicable practice of catching fish with cyanide. Cyanide capture only works because most of the fish are shipped out before the long term effects start showing.
 
I don't disagree that in general blanket statements are to be avoided, and in fact, you're points are well-taken. However, I suspect we can agree that in an ideal world it would happen as you outline, but we don't live in an ideal world, and there's little chance of limiting collection to juveniles, QT'd in-country, etc. It's not a realistic expectation in many of these countries, and that's why I feel the way I do about CB's.

BAR began with an eye toward sustainability, and respect for the animals we all enjoy, and I don't think wild importation of this particular species fits those goals. I also know that because we don't live in an ideal world that CB's will continue to be imported haphazardly, and most will die.
 
I'll stop buying copperband unless I will know is from a respected source. Mine I managed to make him eat. He was eating myses and even dry myses and some other frozen food that was looking like a worm. But his belly was always sunk. It never got big belly. I was feeding twice a day and he was always eating things.
He past away after like 3 months I was kinda sad. So unless I know who will caputre the copperband is a respected person that is not using any chimicals I will not get another one. Unless I will buy it from another reefer.
 
I had stopped buying this fish because Ive never been able to keep one long term. Hopefully the captive bred ones will do better
 
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