I read here somewhere that a young cray will overeat and should not get more than one shrimp pellet every day or two, or he may molt prematurely. I don't always feed him shrimp pellets; he gets those, and also Hikari Crab Cuisine, Tetra Repto-Min, algae wafer and spirulina pellets. Treats are frozen krill, mysis, brine shrimp and blood worms and he gets only a little (all are Hikari, guaranteed free of harmful bacteria and parasites). I give him an amount of food approximately equal to half a shrimp pellet daily, a different food each day, and if the mbuna are getting veggies, I give the cray a tiny bit as well. He likes peas and romaine. He has some najas grass and anacharis so he can make himself a salad if he wants, but it appears he prefers to tear it to bits instead (fine with me--even a crayfish needs a hobby.
)To get to the point of my long story (sorry), in the week he's been in his tank, I haven't seen more than a flash of orange-tipped pincer or a waving antenna sticking out of his lair. I put his food in at night, it's gone in an hour, and since nothing else lives in there, I presume he's eating it. His Highness stalked out to grace me with his presence today, though, and he's considerably larger (guessing close to 1.75"?), so he must have molted again. It's been only ten days since the last time, and although he appears hale and hearty, I fear this is too soon.
- Tank size: 10g
- Temperature: 72F, central air stays on, so he'll be stable and won't get any warmer.
- Filtration: 100 gph, he also has aeration
- Ammonia/nitrite/nitrate - 0/0/<5
- pH/KH/GH: 7.6/8/9 There is a bag of crushed coral in the filter (not sure he needs it, but it seems to help keep my snails' shells strong)
- Cu: 0
- Ca: Don't know, have to order a test, but snails and my crab do well
- Water conditioner: NovAqua and AmQuel (AQ because source water has chloramine, and lots of it)
- Water changes: He's had only one so far because he's been in the tank for just a week, but I change 15% weekly, 20% for critters that are a bit messier. His nitrate was less than 5 ppm, so he got a 15%.
Questions:
- What am I doing wrong to make him molt so often?
- Should I cut back his food to the equivalent of half a shrimp pellet every other day instead of daily?
- Would it be better to give him live snails (ponds/ramshorns, cultured inside) that he can catch, and cut back the feeding of more "concentrated nutrition" foods to a couple of times a week?
- Can he have a live California blackworm as an occasional treat, or would he just chop it up in his efforts to eat it, leaving me with a colony of worms trying to take up residence in the tank?
My sincere thanks to anyone who took the time to read this. I apologise for its length, but if you don't know what I'm doing, you can't tell me what I'm doing wrong, and I want to take good care of this li'l guy.