difficulty feeding my blood shrimp

zephyrmiasma · #1 01/07/2008, 02:36 AM

i have got the blood shrimp for about 2 months now, and during this time, i've been feeding it a piece of shrimp by placing it near the entrance of the cave he hangs under all the time. i use to do this once every 3-4 days or so to cut back on feeding. the rest of the fish in my tank is only given flakes and pallets every 2nd day, and the food is always gone in 30 secs. and my shrimp is always very shy and just stays in the cave during feeding time.

this is where the problem starts i know the blood shrimp is a nocturnal creature that scavenge food at night and there is no food for it to go after therefore it goes after my small firefish and clowns instead, as all the tail and fins are nipped at.

as soon as i realised this i increased the feeding on the shrimp every 2nd day the same time i feed my fish, however, the piece of shrimp that i feed it is thrown away after a few minutes and it still continues to go after my fish at night, how do i stop this? and also hair algae is starting to grow from the uneaten pieces of shrimp as non of the fish seems to eat that stuff.

So my question is what can i feed it to keep him happy and get him to stop nipping at my fish. and how should i feed it since he doesnt come out during feeding time and just stays in his cave.

FOSELONE · #2 01/07/2008, 02:53 AM

i doubt hes the one nipping @ your fish...i feed my fish brine shrimp...my shrimp always come out to eat...

LobsterOfJustice · #3 01/07/2008, 11:26 AM

I stick pellets under my fingernails and let the shrimp pick them out

The_Browns · #4 01/07/2008, 11:31 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by LobsterOfJustice
I stick pellets under my fingernails and let the shrimp pick them out

I would like to see a picture of that

AquaReeferMan · #5 01/07/2008, 11:35 AM

I used to have a pair of them before they were lost to a power outage. I would just hold some krill in front of their hole. Within a couple of seconds they were climbing on my hand eating the it. They usually jump on food when they get a chance. They wont nip at fish. They are a cleaner shrimp. They might clean but they wont nip at them. Im sure the ripped fins are due to fish on fish behavior.

Rubicon06 · #6 01/07/2008, 12:11 PM

Agreed, I had 2 and both were out and on my hand everytime I stuck it in especially if there was food, they reminded me of dogs for that reason.

zephyrmiasma · #7 01/08/2008, 02:24 AM

if it's not the blood shrimp doing nipping, the other thing that i can think of that might nip at night is a small brown looking crab that is in the tank that i know of. it looked innocent before only picking at the rocks for algae so i left it alone. might have to make a trap for it to get it out, any tips on that?

also my tank is very deep 2.5 foot deep, plus a canopy that obstructs my hands from reaching to the cave where the blood shrimp is hiding, so i cant really hand feed it, i use tongs thou instead, but i think it's too scared of it...