muddymidget

Hi, my teardrop butterfly has seemed to hide a lot more than usual. the nose/mouth area has also started to change color to black. I don't know what the cause is or how to make'em feel any better. I will try to do a few water changes and see how it improves in the next few days... but any other suggestions/help would greatly be appreciated!

Thanks!

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Mike

Hi muddy - welcome to FishLore.

How often and what kinds of foods are you feeding this butterfly fish? What other fish do you have?

muddymidget

Thanks... however i was a little too late in helping the poor little Roger I got home from work and found him upside down ....

feeding consisted of flakes & occasional frozen brine shrimp twice daily. i have 3 damsels and a sunflower coral that have flourished as well and haven't seen any problems with any of them.... What could have gone wrong?! I do not want to make the same mistakes twice that's for sure!

flameangelfan

Hi Muddy, I am very sorry for your loss... as you surely realize, butterfly fish are very beautiful and can be very difficult to keep.
To help you have better success in the future I wanted to ask you some questions and give you some helpful hints.

First of all, every butterfly I have ever kept has been omnivourous with the majority of the diet consisting of vegetation (Dried Seaweed).

Secondly, how closely do you monitor your water values? If you have a coral, your water quality must be supreme or that would've surely died first. But for some reason Butterflies seem to be more sensetive to nitrates than many other SW fish I have kept.

My guess is that the diet was the main culprit. I have made it habit to become an "expert" on every fish I have ever gotten, that way I have very few questions when introducing them to my tanks. I also find it very intreguing to hear others' experiences with certain fish, since they many times vary in extremes. For example, I had a puffer and a neon goby who lived harmoniously together for over 6 months. The puffer would eat live foods and leave the goby alone. So I added another goby and i don't think he touched the water before the puffer ate him... but the puffer still left the other goby all alone.

Hope this advice helps, happy fish keeping!