worley
12-08-2008, 05:58 AM
I've had a very nice small copperbanded butterfly fish for the last few weeks, unfortunately he had a mild case of ich, the day after he was placed in the tank, probably from the stress of the move (yes, i should have quarantined). However, thanks to near perfect water quality (0 ammonia/nitrite and around 5ppm nitrate, 0 phosphate, ph 8.4, SG 1.025) it went within 2 days and hasn't returned.
However, he's been a pig to feed. He ate every single fan and sponge and copepod that came on the liverock (we had a lot) for the first few days, then when they ran out nothing for a few days.
I tried him on live muscles, both open fully, left closed and partially open and he ignored them completely.
He won't touch frozen artemia/brine shrimp, he did have a few frozen mysis, but no longer eats them at all.
I then managed to get him eating on live brineshrimp that I've had literally swimming in very dense live phytoplankton, which they cleared up very quickly, so they were relatively nutritious. However, 10 days of feeding him live brine later (yesterday), he's stopped eating them too, and he's only grazing the rocks, and there's nothing left on them for him to eat now.
He has a large amount of liverock to graze on and hide in, with lots of swimming space and caves to hide in (53kg / 117lb in a aquamedic percula 90). I'm still offering frozen brine and mysis as well as live brine to all the fish, but he takes a look at them then swims past.
Anyone got any suggestions?
However, he's been a pig to feed. He ate every single fan and sponge and copepod that came on the liverock (we had a lot) for the first few days, then when they ran out nothing for a few days.
I tried him on live muscles, both open fully, left closed and partially open and he ignored them completely.
He won't touch frozen artemia/brine shrimp, he did have a few frozen mysis, but no longer eats them at all.
I then managed to get him eating on live brineshrimp that I've had literally swimming in very dense live phytoplankton, which they cleared up very quickly, so they were relatively nutritious. However, 10 days of feeding him live brine later (yesterday), he's stopped eating them too, and he's only grazing the rocks, and there's nothing left on them for him to eat now.
He has a large amount of liverock to graze on and hide in, with lots of swimming space and caves to hide in (53kg / 117lb in a aquamedic percula 90). I'm still offering frozen brine and mysis as well as live brine to all the fish, but he takes a look at them then swims past.
Anyone got any suggestions?