bimac not eating

wombat2 · #1 09/18/2002, 11:31 PM

It's been 5 1/2 days since I got my bimac. The first day he ate some small shrimp and 3 baby mollies. Since then I've kept 3 hermit crabs, 2 snails, 1 clown and 8 more mollies in the tank, and he may have eaten 2 mollies but that's it. His mantle is about the size of a cherry or grape. I'm not worried about him starving to death or anything, just that this might be an indicator of another stressor. He has plenty of hiding space (so much that I've seen him once since I got him and that was just his arm), temp 77, salinity 1.026, NO3 at 0. Do they always go on hunger strike or is this a normal amount of food for him to be eating???

Rudiger · #2 09/19/2002, 03:06 PM

You said he has plenty of hiding spaces so Im assuming that means you have lots of live rock in the tank. If this is the case than he may just be eating amphipods or other small creatures that live in the rocks. He is small enough that these will provide enough food for him. But it is odd that he wouldnt eat hermits or snails. If I dont feed my octopus he will go out hunting, land on a rock and stick all his arms in the holes and flush out the pods. But he would take a snail over those any day.

With all those fish in the tank you may want to recheck the water quality.

OctoMonkey · #3 09/19/2002, 03:36 PM

... just out of interest, my baby bimac eats one crab of about 2cm carapace width every two days and I dont see it on the 'belly full' day

How often are others feeding their bimacs? what temp? and feeding on what?

So far it has left alone 2 out of original 6 red legs and 5 out of 5 original turbo snails..... It seems obvious that these shore crabs are the favourite.

Colin

Rudiger · #4 09/19/2002, 04:40 PM

When I first got mine he would eat two red leg hermit crabs a day, everyday. They werent very big. He doesnt waste his time with those anymore. Now he is eating thawed pieces of jumbo shrimp, pieces about the size of two M&Ms, or a little smaller than a peanut M&M. Some days I give him one piece, some days I give him two pieces, one in the afternoon and one right before his lights go out. He will take and eat as much as I offer, but sometimes doesnt finish the whole piece of shrimp.

wombat2 · #5 09/19/2002, 05:11 PM

OK, I found a hermit crab carapace this morning ripped apart so I guess he is eating, just never showing his face when I'm around. I wish I had a time lapse camera so I could catch him in the act!!! This is good news, the last octo I had a year ago never ate and died after a week

BTW the 8 mollies are just babies, smaller than guppy size, so they shouldn't contribute too much bioload. I don't test for ammonia or nitrite, just nitrate and that's zero using Salifert.

alligator · #6 09/23/2002, 10:31 AM

I've found that a temperature difference of just a few degrees makes my bimac less active.

At 74 degrees or under, he's very active. At 75 degrees and higher, he hides most of the time, and is very reluctant to take food.

I tried the shrimp, and both times he took the whole shrimp (size of a grape) and hid. I then found the uneaten shrimp about an hour later (both times!). He really likes one hermit a day, and only hermits. He won't take a ghost shrimp from me.

I'm so frustrated, that I dropped in all 9 remaining ghost shrimp into the tank and figured he could just hunt them out when he wanted them. Of course, I soon found the ghost shrimp eating the larger shrimp (which was frozen) I gave to the bimac. Weird!

He's still alive, very, very, very shy, but doing well. I can't ever approach him with food - the best I can do is put the food near his cave and let him come out to get it. If I approach mine on the glass, he'll just swim off and hide.

Definately the strangest pet I've ever had.