Tank size/Fish compatibility

[asylumdown]

Originally Posted by Reef Pilot

But the Copperband police might...

You think that's too small for a copper band? I thought they could live in way smaller tanks? Or just that copper bands are testy to begin with? I've had amazeballs success with copperbands so far, you should see how fat my current one is.

[gobytron]

copperbanded butterflies don;t need room so much as an established system to provide them with food.

95% of them will starve to death eventually.

[asylumdown]

If you saw my copperband, you'd know that wasn't a risk for him. The one I lost in a ich treatment/QT accident was the same. My experience has been that they're hard to get to eat, but once you've got them trained on frozen foods (which definitely requires some TLC, preferabbly in a separate, low competition qt system) they're as robust as any other fish.

I do agree they'll do better in a mature system (everything does), but once you get them eating you can easily provide their entire caloric requirements with frozen foods.

Mine eats two different kinds of enriched brine, two different brands of mysis, pacifica plankton, and most of a frozen clam or mussel every other day or so. He's as thick as a tang.

I will definitely agree that getting them to that point can be a challenge though.

[Marlin65]

I would say you are good to go on both. I have close to the same size tank and mine are fine. plenty of room for them to swim around.

[George]

Hate to be a devil advocate, but what is the minimum tank size length wise for a powder blue tang? is it 3'x3' , 2'x2' or 1'x1' if someone have nothing in the tank but water and the fish? Couldn't the fish swim around in a circle in a 1'x1' tank and not hitting the wall.

[reefwars]

Originally Posted by George

Hate to be a devil advocate, but what is the minimum tank size length wise for a powder blue tang? is it 3'x3' , 2'x2' or 1'x1' if someone have nothing in the tank but water and the fish? Couldn't the fish swim around in a circle in a 1'x1' tank and not hitting the wall.

at what point does 1ft , 2ft or 10ft make a difference to a fish that swims a sq kilometer a day?

[George]

Originally Posted by George

Hate to be a devil advocate, but what is the minimum tank size length wise for a powder blue tang? is it 3'x3' , 2'x2' or 1'x1' if someone have nothing in the tank but water and the fish? Couldn't the fish swim around in a circle in a 1'x1' tank and not hitting the wall.

Originally Posted by reefwars

at what point does 1ft , 2ft or 10ft make a difference to a fish that swims a sq kilometer a day?

interesting...I agree that 1ft sq, 2ft sq or 10 ft sq doesn't make a difference to a fish that swims kilometer sq. But somehow my gut feeling tells me putting a powder blue in a 1'x1' tank is not a good idea.

[gobytron]

Originally Posted by asylumdown

If you saw my copperband, you'd know that wasn't a risk for him. The one I lost in a ich treatment/QT accident was the same. My experience has been that they're hard to get to eat, but once you've got them trained on frozen foods (which definitely requires some TLC, preferabbly in a separate, low competition qt system) they're as robust as any other fish.

I do agree they'll do better in a mature system (everything does), but once you get them eating you can easily provide their entire caloric requirements with frozen foods.

Mine eats two different kinds of enriched brine, two different brands of mysis, pacifica plankton, and most of a frozen clam or mussel every other day or so. He's as thick as a tang.

I will definitely agree that getting them to that point can be a challenge though.

In my reading, it has been pointed out that cpb's don;t eat mysis in the wild.
They are omnivorous but their diet consists mostly of micro flora (and some fauna) so even when they are eating frozen, they're basically living on mcdonalds.

Thats why so many reputed to be eating frozen foods still die from malnutrition.

[asylumdown]

Originally Posted by gobytron

In my reading, it has been pointed out that cpb's don;t eat mysis in the wild.
They are omnivorous but their diet consists mostly of micro flora (and some fauna) so even when they are eating frozen, they're basically living on mcdonalds.

Thats why so many reputed to be eating frozen foods still die from malnutrition.

hehe, considering that PE mysis comes from freshwater lakes in northern BC and Hikari mysis comes from some other fresh water source, any marine animal that eats frozen mysis is technically eating McDonalds. I think anything that gets all of it's food from a single source will eventually have problems, that's why I try and feed a variety of things that are fortified with different blends of vitamins.

Originally Posted by daniella3d

Why do you want a copperband? hope you know they are very finiky eaters and you might have to give it some live food and messy food like fresh live mussels. They often have problem feeding because they are gentle fish and other more aggressive fish will get to all the food before the copperband even have a bite. They are way best kept in a tank with no aggressive fish at all. Mine was with one niger trigger that was always hiding, and just a few small fish. I was feeding him twice a day with a pipette so that he would eat. They can be very time consuming and you must be prepare for this.

They're my favourite fish. Great personalities, curious, non-aggressive, eat out of my hands, cool looking, keeps certain pests in check... the list goes on. I don't mind giving extra attention getting them to eat.

Originally Posted by fishoholic

Personally I think the powder blue is a very bad idea. They can be hard to keep (finicky eaters, ich magnets, and a lot of them when they first come in to a lfs have internal parasites) also they are aggressive fish once fully established. If you saw the way Doug's powder blue cruises back and forth in his 7 foot long tank you'd realize 36x36 is way to small for one.

Yah that's what I'm worried about. Well, either I'll get a bigger tank, or no powder blue. The closest I came to having success with one was when all my fish were in quarantine while my display was being fallowed for ich. I got a powder blue right at the start so that they would all go through the same ich treatment protocol and QT together. That fish was perfect. At first he would only eat nori, but after about 5 weeks he figured out mysis was food and started eating with the rest of the fish. Gained a ton of weight, and *seemed* ok in a 40 gallon QT (he was pretty small though). Ate out of my hands, was perfect. Lost him along with every single other fish when the door to the room they were in was closed by mistake during a party and the room overheated. Broke my heart, they were less than a week away from going back in the big tank, and that powder blue was fat, and perfectly healthy. I've always wanted to try again, but perhaps not this time. It stresses me out watching a fish go crazy from not enough room, and if you get the impression that they're still cramped in a 7 foot tank I'll take that advice to heart.

OK, well I need some sort of an algae grazer. My next best option is a doliatus rabbitfish as I have one of those now and it swims circles around any tang from an algae eating point of view, but I'm also not convinced a 3ftx3ft tank is big enough for them. My current guy is getting pretty big. If it is another smaller tang though, it needs to be showy and less common. I'm not sure which species fit that bill though.

[fishoholic]

Maybe a white tail bristletooth tang? They look pretty cool and stay smallish and aren't to common.