Feeding Randall's Shrimp Goby/Tiger Shrimp

[JonnyKhan]

Hi. I just got a 29g Biocube intended for a Goby/Shrimp partnership (maybe some other fish and inverts later). It's a new tank using established sand, live rock, and some bioballs from a previous aquarium. Ammonia and Nitrite are effectively zero, and Nitrate is a bit under 10 ppm. They've been settled in for three days, and the shrimp has excavated every inch. They were a pair when I got them, and still are. Both are about 1 1/2 inches long.



I can't tell if the goby is eating! As soon as I introduce the turkey baster full of finely chopped frozen mysis and brine shrimp, he disappears into the burrow (huge burrow going under one rock and with at least three openings). He stays hidden for 20 minutes at a minimum. I have tried squirting the food as close to the mouth of the burrow as possible, but I don't want to collapse it or fill it with detritus. How can I tell if the goby and shrimp are eating any of this? Should I try some other method of delivery? I did release a bottle of red copepods at startup, but they seem to have disappeared to the filter/refugium back section.

Basically, can anyone tell me how to tell for certain that my new partners are eating, and about how much? I've read that having an open water swimming fish can make gobies less shy? Any truth to that?

Thanks.

[JonnyKhan]

I did water changes to reduce the nitrate from about 9 to about 2 ppm, and I finally got him to eat a single pellet of "Formula One". I had to drop about a hundred of them in there before one floated close enough to him, and then I had to siphon them all back out. There must be an easier way.

The shrimp has literally dug tunnels across the entire 29 gallon aquarium, and there are at least six different openings I have seen the goby guarding. I don't want to introduce any scavengers to eat the extra food that the shrimp and goby miss. They're the whole purpose of this nanoreef, and I don't want any motile inverts or fish that will compete with them.

[Sadielynn]

Just watch your feeding . You will cause your perameters to go wacky and sky high.
Try going 2 or 3 days with out feeding then add only a few ... they likely need a couple days to "explore" and settle in .
Then try to only add what they can consume in 15 seconds ..
I have a YWG that has tunnels all over as well I have closed them off with no issues and also have a good size clean up crew , to polish what he does not . Then I do my weekly changes .. I also only feed 2x's a week so that I can be sure they are hungry .. I have gone on vacation for a period of upto a week and no one fed them either I did that the day I returned or the next day .. no harm came to them they were still plump and happy critters ...

[austinsdad]

I just drop pellets in front of the burrow and leave it. If they're hungry, they'll come and you will see them eat.

[JonnyKhan]

Thanks. It responded to garlic flavored shrimp pellets, and I think the pistol shrimp is eating the leftovers.