Copperbanded Butterfly

[MarbleShark]

Can anyone tell me their experience with this guy? It says reef safe but just want to be sure.

I know that every fish is different just like every person is different.. I am just looking for experiences and opinions.

[Woodstock]

They are very difficult to wean onto prepared foods and are easily intimidated by other aggressive fish. They will eat feather dusters and eventually will begin to pick at most LPS, and clams. I have also seen mine eating the antennae of my snails.

[MarbleShark]

What about Pearlscale Butterflies?

[BoomerD]

Definitely NOT reefsafe...

Unfortunately, none of the B/Flyfish are truely totally reef-safe, (which is a vague term at best) as all will nip at and/or eat many corals and other desirable inverts.
The CBB is about as close as you'll get to being reef safe, and as Woodstock said, they will certainly eat all feather-duster types of animals, and may even enjoy a snack of your polyps.

[DaveK]

Just about all butterflys, except the various long nose species like a copperband, are generally not reef safe. It's really too bad because many butterflys are fantastic looking fish.

[SueT]

I have had my copperband for over 7 years now. It's been in with my sps corals and clams since day 1. It did eat my little fan worms and won't touch aiptasia but it's a beautiful fish so that saved it. It has only tried to nip my clams one time and as long as I keep the clams up in the rocks it's fine. It is a pig for mysis shrimp and will also eat enriched brine. Flake foods are out and I never had to try it on anything else as it's been a very healthy fish. Some I have read will not eat frozen so it's imperative that you get the LFS owner to feed the fish beofre I'd ever take one home.

[cheeks69]

My experience with CBB's has not been good. These fish often come from the Philippines were cyanide use is quite common and they don't ship very well. Most go on hunger strikes and will refuse to eat no matter what you try, others will eat but eventually decline. I had one that would feed out of my hands and one day it just decided to stop eating, it was terrible to see such a miserable death.

Sue and Doni have had great success with this fish but this isn't typical IME and research. Also these fish are not completely reefsafe as has been mentioned, mine would eat fan worms and would pick on snails and other motile inverts. Just my 2 pennies

[DaBird]

Our CB has been a model citizen so far, he ate all the little fan worms (we had an infestation) and when they were all gone he started eating the mysis and blood worms. He's fat and sassy and doing great...

[mps9506]

Cheeks is 100% correct about the collection of these guys. It can be quite difficult to find a specimen that will take to prepared foods immediately, and quite often they come in badly stressed or starved. My experience with these has been pretty bad overall as well. I infact stopped carrying them at our store all together.

[BoomerD]

I lost 2 CBB's before I got one to live. One from the LFS, and it ate brine at the store, but refused to eat anything once I got it home, the other from MarineDepotLive, which lived about 2 weeks, refusing food the entire time. The one I got that did wonderfully, came from another aquarist's tank when he got out of the hobby, and he had the fish for 3-4 years. This thing was a mysis PIG! Did a great job at reducing my feather dusters and other tube worms, as well as any aiptasia, but when I fed P.E. Mysis, (IMO, the BEST you can get) this thing went into a feeding frenzy that would put sharks to shame!