Looking for Copperband Butterfly

Copperbands can be very finicky to get to eat. What size tank do you have? liveaquaria divers den gets them occasionally that are weaned onto frozen mysis. But they sell within seconds of being posted to the site. 5pm daily the fish update. Got one there about a year ago and took care of my aptaisa within a couple of weeks and is still going strong, fat and eats like a pig a variety of frozen foods. If you get one anywhere else make sure that it is eating frozen foods before you purchase it.

 

Aiptasia-X, boiling/hot RO/DI, Lemon juice, kalk, Matted FileFish, Majano Wand, peppermint shrimp, etc.... will take care of aiptasia. I would not recommend taking your rock out...to keep a tank totally free of aiptasia is next to impossible....

 

I had some and put 2 peppermint shrimp in my 180 and they had it gone within 24hrs. I would start with a few of them before I spent the money on a copperband.

 

There is a nudibranch that only eats api anemones , peppermint sand copperband a can be a hit and miss and api-x is a chemical, lemon juice, kalk I believe is it.

 

Boil a cup of your tank or rodi water, apply it to the aiptaisa with an oral syringe. You will get rid of the aiptasia this way. Did I mention FREE method. Only thing you have to be careful of is if the aiptasia is sitting in a patch of other corals. If it is just on rock the coralline algae will turn pink and then come back. I have not had aiptasia in years and have used this method on my tank and others and it works.

 

Like others mentioned they're hit or miss. If you are looking to buy one from a reefer, take alook at their tank - if they have aiptasia then you won't get the result your're looking for.



Pet's Playhouse used to get them from time to time and they typically have a tank with aitpasia in it (just part of this hobby) and you could always ask them to place one in a tank with them prior to purchase.




There's many ways to rid the aiptasia that you can visibly see, as mentioned with various products, but unfortunately once you get these in your tank (like bubble algae) you'll always be playing catch up so a predator is a great move. Cautions would be ensuring your tank is large enough for the adult size and that it will eat something other than just aiptasia.




Good luck!




-Eric