Last night I caught one of my emerald crabs picking at my GSP frag. It was all closed up and I couldn't see whether he was picking algae off the frag or if he was nipping at the polyps, but it does look slightly worse for wear on the side he was interested in this morning.
Last night:
This morning:
I've read that under-fed emerald crabs might exhibit this behaviour. I'm relatively new to the hobby - only three months in so far. This tank previously had a mantis shrimp in it which I've now moved, so I'm starting the process of turning it into a mixed reef tank. It currently has no fish (fish to go in will be clowns, currently in QT) and just three new softie frags but over the course of last week I've added quite a lot of clean-up crew:
1 boxer shrimp
2 scarlet skunk cleaner shrimp
2 blood red shrimp
2 peppermint shrimp
2 emerald crabs
2 zebra hermit crabs
1 conch
1 turbo snail
1 tuxedo urchin
3 bumblebee snails
3 nassarius snails
3 spiny astrea snails
3 money cowries
10 trochus snails
I was advised by an LFS that I trust that it would be fine to go quite heavy on the CUC stocking because they have a very low bio load, it's a decent sized tank (64 gallons) and at the time there was plenty to eat in there because the rock was covered with green algae. I was astonished by how quickly they picked the rocks clean - within 72 hours there wasn't a scrap of green anywhere on the rocks or the glass (they've even cleaned my Flipper and filter intake). The LFS said this wasn't a problem and I could supplement their diet with pellet food, so I started feeding them about this much pellet once a day (just dropping it into the tank and letting it float or land randomly, since my CUC are spread all over the tank):
The LFS said this was way too much and it should be more like 4 of 5 pellets every other day, but I wonder if they were thinking I had a different sized pellet because the amount I'm feeding seems miniscule for the number of mouths it's shared between.
All the inhabitants seem happy and healthy - water parameters are mostly good - no ammonia, 0.01ppm nitrites, 25ppm nitrates, 0.07 phosphate (down from 0.2, I'm reducing it with Rowaphos), salinity 1.025. I know my nitrates are a bit high and for that reason I'd like to limit feeding, but if my crabs are hungry enough to nip at my corals I'm wondering if I'm feeding too little?
Last night:
This morning:
I've read that under-fed emerald crabs might exhibit this behaviour. I'm relatively new to the hobby - only three months in so far. This tank previously had a mantis shrimp in it which I've now moved, so I'm starting the process of turning it into a mixed reef tank. It currently has no fish (fish to go in will be clowns, currently in QT) and just three new softie frags but over the course of last week I've added quite a lot of clean-up crew:
1 boxer shrimp
2 scarlet skunk cleaner shrimp
2 blood red shrimp
2 peppermint shrimp
2 emerald crabs
2 zebra hermit crabs
1 conch
1 turbo snail
1 tuxedo urchin
3 bumblebee snails
3 nassarius snails
3 spiny astrea snails
3 money cowries
10 trochus snails
I was advised by an LFS that I trust that it would be fine to go quite heavy on the CUC stocking because they have a very low bio load, it's a decent sized tank (64 gallons) and at the time there was plenty to eat in there because the rock was covered with green algae. I was astonished by how quickly they picked the rocks clean - within 72 hours there wasn't a scrap of green anywhere on the rocks or the glass (they've even cleaned my Flipper and filter intake). The LFS said this wasn't a problem and I could supplement their diet with pellet food, so I started feeding them about this much pellet once a day (just dropping it into the tank and letting it float or land randomly, since my CUC are spread all over the tank):
The LFS said this was way too much and it should be more like 4 of 5 pellets every other day, but I wonder if they were thinking I had a different sized pellet because the amount I'm feeding seems miniscule for the number of mouths it's shared between.
All the inhabitants seem happy and healthy - water parameters are mostly good - no ammonia, 0.01ppm nitrites, 25ppm nitrates, 0.07 phosphate (down from 0.2, I'm reducing it with Rowaphos), salinity 1.025. I know my nitrates are a bit high and for that reason I'd like to limit feeding, but if my crabs are hungry enough to nip at my corals I'm wondering if I'm feeding too little?