Invertebrate Feeding Guidelines

[Tobin VP]

I'm seeking general advice on feeding quantity for some snails, crabs, and shrimp.

I have a new 10 gallon invert quarantine tank and just put in the following initial CUC order 5 days ago:

50 Dwarf Cerith
16 Nassarius Vibex
17 Florida Cerith
14 Astraea Snails
2 Assorted Cleaning Shrimp
2 Spotted Porcelain Crab

These will be heading to a 42 gallon DT after quarantine. My QT is new and pristine (no algae) and I wanted to be certain that right at the start they had things to eat ... but I think I overdid it. I put in three pinches of pellets (New Life Spectrum 1mm) and a day later fed a half a cube of frozen mises shrimp. Now three days later I measured Total Ammonia = 1.2 ppm, and Nitrite = 1.6 ppm. I immediately dosed Seachem AmGuard aggressively and did a 35% water change. I will be doing 1-2 more water changes.

It's possible that the tank was not cycled as well as it should have been. Also it is possible that some of the snails may be dead and are decaying, but my best guess is that I just put way too much food in the tank.

So I am curious if anyone has any guidance on how much food would be appropriate (and frequency) for this size of a CUC with very little algae growth at this stage.

Thanks.

 

[EricR]

I hope you get some good advice but that sounds like a lot of snails in a clean, 10 gallon QT to me.

For snail QT, I've had luck with sheet nori for Mexican turbo snails but I have some astaea snails in QT right now that I can't get to touch it. (Will be trying algae wafers next)

Masstick has/is working for me for nassarius snails. (Pain to mix it up but, after that, there's lots of reasons to like it)

 

[Tobin VP]

This CUC was recommended by Reef Cleaners and they were aware of the size of the QT tank. It seems like a lot but the 50 Dwarf Cerith snails for example are very small (about 1/8") and eventually get to be around 1/2". They are meant for hard to reach areas in rock scape.

Thanks for Nori recommendation.