Hand feeding a copperband

[rtelles]

After experimenting with a wide variety of foods, my copperband has developed a taste for reef frenzy nano and does a little dance whenever I approach the tank. I feed him lrs twice a day and attach a small clam or mussel to a rock once or twice a week for him to nip at during the day, which he does at his leisure. He also likes frozen brine and mysis shrimp, though not quite as much, so I'll spray some of those into the rock work a few times a week for him to scavenge as well. I see him pick at the various spots I spray, so he seems to enjoy the hunt and has put on a considerable amount of weight and colored up nicely since I picked him up a little over a month ago. Like most fish, he also goes for blackworms when I have them handy, and he didn't seem to mind baby brine shrimp either. Unsurprisingly, he doesn't touch the SA hatchery pellets I feed my clowns. The sad irony is that I purposefully added a small number of aiptasia to my tank prior to purchasing him so that he could fall back on those if he was finicky, but he has no interest in them, so I'll be manually removing them. He's pretty bold now, and doesn't hide or scare when I'm doing maintenance, only when I bring out the net (in which case he immediately bolts into his cave). 

 

He's currently only housed with a timid, fat juvenile one spot rabbitfish and a bonded pair of hybrid maroon/ocellaris (female) and black ocellaris (male) clownfish, so I don't have any issues monitoring his food intake, since he's the main challenge and focus of my setup. Unfortunately, he's currently housed in a 30 shallow cube (I know) because my 80 dd cracked, but I don't plan on adding any other fish either now or when I upgrade, and he seems like he'll be okay until I get a replacement within the next couple of months. Video below.

 

 

https://youtu.be/APANMHtG1Cs

Edited April 13, 2016 by rtelles

[tom39]

He seems like one happy fellow and it looks like he loves to eat. Great job putting in the time to get him to eat so well. Thank you for sharing.

 

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[ReefFrenzy]

Thanks for sharing and using LRS. We keep getting tons of pics and videos from folks hand feeding our foods and I enjoy them all. Even the stores are using more LRS in house with new arrivals to get fish eating faster.

 

This is another similar video:  https://youtu.be/73qlzs_uDIU?list=FLgjUqayLvNIBDT5wGQGDzHg

 

Believe it or not the Fertility Frenzy breeder food with extra clams and fish oil works great as well. This video is from Japan:  

 

We get some cool photos sent to us as well. 

 

[Reefer_Madness]

Nice man! Now he is going to learn to beg. Pretty cool.

[rtelles]

The nano frenzy seems to be the right size and consistency for him to swallow whole and not do the copperband eat/spit/eat thing. I tried regular reef frenzy, but the chunks are a little too big and he gets outcompeted by the clowns and rabbitfish as he picks at it. Little guy already begs when I so much as walk by the tank. My goal is to make him fat. 

[Brewski]

great to see you have gotten him to eat.  i did not have as much success back in the day.

[rtelles]

I think I was either really lucky with my CBB, or I'm doing something right with his feeding schedule as my little guy is still getting fatter and coloring up beautifully. He loves him some LRS nano and will literally grab it out of the rabbitfish or clownfish's mouths, or reach out of the water for a bite. He'll still pick at mysis and enriched brine shrimp, albeit with much less enthusiasm. My clownfish pair and the rabbitfish go ahead and take the majority of those, as well as the formula one pellets I drop in for them every day. I tried to trick the CBB into eating pellets for some bulk by coating them in LRS, but he simply sucks off all of the lrs and spits out the pellet. It could be that the pellets are too large (or that he's no fool), but I'll try it with some of the much smaller ORA hatchery pellets later this week. I know that pellets aren't ideal, but I figure if I can get him to choke some of them down, he won't become reliant on one or two types of food, as I've heard of many CBB's that were incredibly picky and then suddenly stopped eating, and then slowly starved. I also bought a bunch of cheap live freshwater clams a few weeks ago and froze them. I open them up and rinse them off for a bit, and then slice the interior of the clam with a paring knife while keeping the meat attached to the shell. I then just drop it in the normal feeding spot and the CBB will pick at it throughout the day. I set up a remote camera to see what the fish were up to while I was at work, and the CBB will pick at the clam for a minute or so, swim away and pick at the rocks for a bit, follow the rabbitfish around, and then come back to the clam and pick at it again. The rabbitfish will take a few bites as well, and by the end of the day, the entire clam is completely clean. It seems as though one of the main issues people have had feeding CBB's is that they're very slow, very methodical eaters that graze throughout the day, and they can't take in as much food due to the shape of their snout, so this seems to do the trick. I've also used mussels, and although he picked at those, he did so with much less enthusiasm and neither he nor the rabbitfish finished them by the end of the day. I'll still keep them in the rotation for the reasons mentioned above. I may also add a mesh cover to a rock and coat it with some lrs/brine/mysis to see if I can encourage the same tendency on a non-shellfish, but there's no rush. I also throw in some live black worms when I can get out to silver spring and buy some, and unsurprisingly, he goes nuts and will eat more than his fill. All that said, the little jerk won't touch any of the aiptasia that I cultivated prior to purchasing him, so I'll be picking up some aiptasia x this week. I used to have a bit of bubble algae as well, but my rabbitfish eradicated those very quickly.

 

One thing to note is that I judge the quality of my tank entirely by how my CBB is doing (easy to do given that my clowns and rabbitfish are basically tanks), and I keep very easy corals that enjoy a slightly dirty tank (softies, rbta's, zoas, etc), so I'm not worried at all about leaving in clams and coating the rock with various foods. My nitrates are much too high for sps, and lps are hit or miss in there, but the softies and zoas are exploding, and my anemones are obnoxiously large and i'll need to part with one or two pretty soon. I'll also be upgrading in the summer and am in the process of curing a few larger pieces of LR for when I do so. I'm set on an 80g dd, so I'm on the lookout. I don't plan on adding any other fish or corals. 

Edited May 4, 2016 by rtelles

[nextlevel808]

That's awesome. My CBB loves Larry's food as well but I do feed the regular reef and fish frenzy because of my other fish I have. Mine does the eat and spit thing from time to time but is growing great I've already noticed it great another band but I've had mine almost a year now. I just moved it from a tank that had a 11" queen trigger and 8" lion to my reef tank where it seems to be liking it now. Actually got picked on more in my reef tank then the predator tank.

[YHSublime]

Here is an old video of my copperband beating out the tangs for food by had, also LRS. Here is another one.

[rtelles]

Really great vids. Seems like there's something in there that brings on that feeding response, and I'm glad it's readily available. The CBB now only has to deal with a typical fat rabbitfish and a greedy hybrid maroon/ocellaris clown who will take entire chunks back to her anemones with her massive mouth. I end up feeding pellet to the clowns while I feed the CBB so that the clown doesn't hog all of the good stuff. I'm really liking how low key and peaceful the 4 of them are. Although the CBB is clearly my fave, I've really loved the personality of the one spot, aside from the few times he tried to spike me when I was cleaning the tank (my fault for moving rocks too close to him and not paying attention, and they seemed like warning splashes).

[nextlevel808]

Where does everyone buy there lrs at? I only know of one store in my area that carries it and that's kings of coral

[ReefFrenzy]

 I tried to trick the CBB into eating pellets for some bulk by coating them in LRS, but he simply sucks off all of the lrs and spits out the pellet. 

 

 

Oh you sneaky devil..LOL..

 

Thank you for all the kudos my friends! The freshness of our ingredients makes all the difference in the feeding response. Many other specialty foods claim to be as effective at convincing new arrivals to eat, but we have yet to see evidence of it. We have a dealer map where you can enter your zip to find the closest LRS dealer here: http://www.larrysreefservices.com/where-to-buy-lrs.html

 

The guys at King of Corals are pretty awesome I have to admit!