invertebrate question

[mike tv]

my cycle finished so quickly that i barely knew it began, possibly because of the small amount of LR that i have, or maybe because i bought already cycled rock from my LFS and only live 10 minutes away from it. either way, i waited and tested daily for 2 weeks straight,
PH of 7.8-8.0
NH spiked to 0.5
N02 spike followed (very small)
and nitrates rose slowly to about 20-30 (test seems inaccurate) (getting it down with rodi water changes)
added a 3 stripe damsel a week ago and he is doing very well (i didnt know that he discolors in the dark, and was incredibly worried for the first couple nights when i was checking on him)

onto my question

the little guys a messy eater when it comes to the freeze dried brine i've been feeding him, i am keeping him and a slowly increasing amount of LR (currently 5lbs, adding 2 more in a couple hours, unless advised not to for some reason) in a 10gal tank circulating while i complete my nano set up. the sand bed and rock are quite a mess with detrius and uneaten food and i am concerned about an ammonia spike that the small amount of rock won't be able to handle, algae has yet to really present itself significantly, although i have seen some red on my rock, i believe it to be coralline which was on the rock in the fish store.

i need a creature or two that
a)will survive my currently high nitrates
b)clean a good amount of detrius and uneaten food
c)remain fairly small
d)not kill the damsel
and
e)be readily available and (hopefully) inexpensive
(i have a big al's nearby, its a fairly large chain of LFS, many of its tanks are infected with ich but they have a lot of invertebrates)(emerald crabs are on sale for 7.99?)

anyway, sorry about the novel
thanks in advance

mike

 

[seapug]

nasarrius snails and a couple hermits will clean up the uneaten food on the sand and rocks, but cutting back on the amount of food you offer will be a surefire way to keep uneaten stuff from accumulating too much.

 

[mike tv]

what is a good method of feeding him the stuff?
he is only about an inch long so obviously tossing a whole cube in was out of the question, i was forced to try to break it up, it is loosely packed to begin with, which resulted in my having to throw chunks in for him to be able to find them on the surface before they fell to the bottom
as soon as he takes a bite from one of the chunks, it begins to sink and invariably a piece remaining makes it to the sand bed, after which he will not eat it, even if i stir it back into the water column immediately.
if i break the pieces of the shrimp up any smaller they simply turn to dust and he can't seem to find it very easily.
i dont wanna add anything other than a damsel for fear of tiny spikes from adding more rock to the tank (and because the 3 stripe appears to have claimed the tank as his own, obviously, given the size)
so as there is no way to have the tank consume more food before it hits the ground, i need to clean up whats there and figure out exactly how to feed less without starving the fish

 

[mike tv]

bump? its his dinner time

 

[kolosy]

btw - why are you adding the LR piecemeal? you're better off doing everything all at once, because you risk causing a cycle...

 

[kolosy]

oh and invertebrates can carry ich, so i'd stay away.

 

[seapug]

you might consider switching from freeze dried foods to frozen food. They tend to be more nutritious and more appealing to the fish. You can also break off a small piece of a cube, thaw it in some RO or tank water then slowly drip it in the tank. They usually devour it and leave little waste.

 

[mike tv]

kolosy - i figured that the bacteria on the 5lbs with such a small bioload as a single damsel would be able to handle the addition of a lb or two pretty efficiently
plus i bought the last five pounds the lfs had, and now that they have more im kind of broke (just ordering a skimmer)
and the invertebrates are kept in a seperate, dedicated system on the wall. they all appear to be healthy and thriving
they, on the other hand, have tangs in almost every for sale tank which have given ich to the other inhabitants. in one i see a sailfin skeleton that apparently the staff has missed for over a week now. makes me almost tear up.

pugboy, thank you for the advice, what frozen food do you suggest, and are you saying that the fish devour the frozen food thawed into a liquid? does it not just disperse through the water once it hits the flow in the water column?

 

[seapug]

frozen mysis is a good fish staple. thaw a little in some water, pour off the cloudy junk and give the meat to Mr. Fish. They usually love it.

 

[mike tv]

thanks very much, sir