african butterfly fish

[flyfly]

I just picked up one yesterday, and he is AWESOME! Has anyone here had one of these fish? How often do I feed him/her? Grassy azz!

[Harlock]

I just picked up one yesterday, and he is AWESOME! Has anyone here had one of these fish? How often do I feed him/her? Grassy azz!
I had one years and years ago. Feed it like you do your other fish. They'll take flakes off the top once they figure it out. I treated mine to insects no and again. Make sure there are NO gaps in the hood of your tank. These fish can take a header and it's a shame to loose such a cool fish.

[flyfly]

Yeah, I covered every hole last night after I researched him a bit more, and picked up some small crickets, but I underestimated the size of his jaw. He totally could have went with the larger crickets!

[Harlock]

Yeah, once they open that trap door hinge jaw wide, you are astounded. Mine was particularly fond of moths.

[ineedabox]

just try and make sure that you buy the crickets from the pet store. some of the ones outside could have pesticides on them.

Harlock, you actually got yours to eat flakes??? mine wouldnt TOUCH them. I couldnt really even get mine to eat shrimp pellets, even if they floated right over to him.

Mine usually ate crickets, and I did manage to get it to eat tubifex one time or another.

[flyfly]

Thanks guys, I think Im headed in the right direction!

[Raskolnikov]

I picked one up on 3/11 and from many accounts that I had heard I was afraid that it might be hard to convince it to eat commercial foods, but so far it has attacked anything that hits the surface of the water and floats. I've been feeding it "tropical crumbles" with great success and will probably try some crickets as a treat before it moves out of quarantine.

[TYPO]

as they all said, they LOVE crickets/moths/yummy things. mine did eat flakes, though i heard not many people are sucessful with that. watch out for little fishes though, i heard they can go after them. also, watch out for fin nippers, as they will nibble at the long, tastey fillaments

[flyfly]

I got you on that, typo, no fin nippers but I do have some guppies and otos. As cruel as it sounds, the guppies are my girlfriends and I am not really sweating it if the ABF gets em. I do kinda like the ottos though, but I am definitely not buying smaller fish now. Oh yeah, I had a halfbeak livebearer in there with the ABF, but I read that he doesnt like any other surface dwellers with him, so I moved HBLB to the 55g.

[WinterWind]

Do these butterfly fish only stay at the top of the water, or do they also swim around in the middle and bottom and stuff?

Are they a hardy fish?

[flyfly]

they only stay at the top. I have seen mine go only about five inches down, but he only stays there for a second. I dont know how hardy they are, but I can tell ya later :)

[WinterWind]

I saw a few at my LFS, looks quite interesting.

I only have a ten gallon, and I'm pretty sure that is way too small for the AFBs :(

[ineedabox]

yea...that's a bit small...I'd say a 20 or 29 minimum..sorry :(

[Raskolnikov]

I tried some small crickets today, and they were readily devoured by my ABF. Since the guy at the Petco gave me way more crickets than I asked for, I tried them in another tank, and giant danios seem to love crickets as well.

[flyfly]

for sure, I threw in one cricket too many and my dwarf guorami ate it

[HeinekenMike]

I just got one of these yesterday, LFS was feeding it minnows and all live food. considering I have 8 glow light tetras in the tank I was a bit worried, but ABF minds his own business at the top, so long as no one comes up to bother him. I was told there pretty hardy, I even read some articles on line about a guy who had one jump out of the tank when he left the house for a smoke break or something, when he came back inside he found it dried and shriveled on the floor, it appeared lifeless(it escaped out a small hole cut for air tubing to get out of the tank) he just put it back in the tank and within 10 minutes it was back to normal.... Sounds to be like there pretty tough. I guess the biggest thing I found while researching and checking mine out in the last 24 hours is they need top floating plants to cruise around and hide in otherwise they may get stressed.
----anyone have one with a UGF? i have a power head at each end of the tank and the current is really not ideal for the ABF at the top, any advise at which directions I should I point the power heads and if the fin that the water shoots out of should be pointed down or up. thanks

[Harlock]

I had my ABF with an undergravel back in the day. It worked well for me. I kept the head ponited toward the front of the tank and angling downward slightly.

[HeinekenMike]

ok thanks, ill give that a try, how often did you feed it live food I.E. Crickets and small minnows

[Harlock]

ok thanks, ill give that a try, how often did you feed it live food I.E. Crickets and small minnows
I fed mine live foods twice a week. Since he was happy eating flakes I wasn't as vigilant about live foods as I could have been.

[HeinekenMike]

the LFS I got him from was feeding him small minnows prior to me buying him, they had him there for a pretty long time, so today I went there and got some small zebra danios and minnows, he really enjoys hunting them and eating them. its fascinating to watch this thing go to work, I believe he is the coolest fish ever! the pet store said not to feed him crickets as they may carry parasites and stuff ( but I think its because they don't sell crickets and want me to spend more money on minnows) anyway I got him some freeze dried plankton since he cant have minnows every day. I dumped 10 minnows in the tank though the LFS said that was cool and he will eat them through out the week. I just don't want to overfeed him. if all go's well and hes doing good in a month I would like to add 1 or 2 more of this incredible fish, first I have to find out of more then 1 can be in the tank since thay all live at the top. anyway any advise on the feeding ammount?

[Harlock]

Heh, yeah crickets are fine. I never had more than one and I had mine back in the days when there was no internet and haven't researched them much since then. No ideas if they can live peacefully with others of their kind. The feeding amount was just like I fed any fish. As I said, mine ate flakes and was treated to a couple of crickets or moths twice a week.

[HeinekenMike]

its an incredible thing to have in your living room, and really impresive to guest when you throw some minnows or zebra d's in lol.