crabs

[BlueTrig]

hey everyone im looking to buy some live feeders for my zebra moray and noticed they have red claw crabs at petsmart. they are 2.50 each and are brackish. will these be ok to feed like once a week? i would love for them to be a staple but he just eats too much and that would be a big bill.

anyone knw of cheap feeder crabs i could buy somewhere? thanks for your help.

 

[MrTuskfish]

hey everyone im looking to buy some live feeders for my zebra moray and noticed they have red claw crabs at petsmart. they are 2.50 each and are brackish. will these be ok to feed like once a week? i would love for them to be a staple but he just eats too much and that would be a big bill.

anyone knw of cheap feeder crabs i could buy somewhere? thanks for your help.

Any live sw crabs could carry parasites into your tank.

 

[Irenicus]

Agreed, I would shy away from the live food.

 

[BlueTrig]

All the packaged food has all the preservatives and chemicals in it which it could make it worse than a parasite

 

[jarrod13]

Depends on what parasite is introduced, what if you introduced something that killed everything in the tank? Frozen foods preservatives wouldn't cause that

 

[BlueTrig]

Ok I appreciate the advice but from everywhere I read live food is encouraged. I mean people who feed their lions mollies could also? I just want to know if there could be problems by feeding them to him from a health point of view. I know goldfish are too fatty I just want to know if they are nutritionally good

 

[anbosu]

I occasionally feed my zebra crayfish and haven't noticed any negative effects.

They sell crabs at bait shops if you live near the ocean. I occasionally will get a dozen shrimp and throw them in the tank also.

 

[MrTuskfish]

All the packaged food has all the preservatives and chemicals in it which it could make it worse than a parasite

I'm on the other side. This entire hobby allows fish to thrive with good processed foods. If someone chose to go the all-natural route, fine by me. Can you provide any evidence linking any processed food to any problem with SW fish? There are active threads on this forum every day that discuss fish loss from parasites; I've never seen or heard of a preservative or chemical related fatality. How do the fish handle all the chemicals in any salt mix?

 

[MrTuskfish]

Ok I appreciate the advice but from everywhere I read live food is encouraged. I mean people who feed their lions mollies could also? I just want to know if there could be problems by feeding them to him from a health point of view. I know goldfish are too fatty I just want to know if they are nutritionally good

FW parasites cannot live in SW ; so FW feeders are safe. The long-term feeding of FW feeders like mollies, guppies, ghost shrimp is usually not advised; although I've never seen any study that shows its harmful. Strangely; the best (arguably) and one of the most popular SW carnivore foods (PE Mysis) and the most common herbivore staple food (spirulina) are both FW products.
But, from a nutritional standpoint, what would be better than fresh crab? IMO.