Desperately need feeder Shrimp/Crabs

mookz

mookz

Joined
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Cape Town - CBD
Hi All, i have recently bought a tiny 3 inch moray eel (sold as zebra but is actually a barred moray, similar to snowflake eel) it is a pebble toothed moray and needs to eat crabs and shrimp.

I have some blue legged hermits and an anemone crab (he has tried to nip the crab but his shell is too thick).

The thing is i live in Cape Town in the CBD and i have access to the ocean, what license would i need to collect wild crabs and shrimp from the ocean if this is even legal. Or is there a way to buy live small shrimp and crabs for feeding?

Please could anyone point me in the right direction, he will not accept any frozen foods, i have tried frozen shrimp,crab, mussel, prawn etc etc etc....when he smells the mussel he does get excited and starts chattering his jaws...but sadly even with a feeder stick will not accept it.

He does "mock" hunt in the tank, lifts up pieces of rock, shell, dead coral snapping his jaws.
 
get a collection permit from the post office for R70 (if i remember correctly) this will allow you to collect as per what is stated on the permit.. it is valid for a year.. good luck with the moray..
 
mike Bushie said:
Where did you buy the morays? What where they feeding them there?
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I do not think they were feeding him anything, sadly he is VERY skinny, he looks to be only a couple of weeks to a month or two old.

I presume he was a hitchhiker as the LFS had recently gotten in allot of new LR.

It was Sam's aquarium.

I could only find about 6 references and 2 positive ids on this moray as everyone labels them as Zebra Morays and 2 of the articles i found said that they usually only pop up in aquariums as hitchhikers.
 
What to feed moray

I kept one of these succesfuly for years. You need to feed it hermits with a softish shell (a black round shell as opposed to a cone shaped white one). I used to collect loads of hermits in the strand during low tide without even getting my feet wet.

You find them next to the tidal pool. Here is the the web site to check out the tides

Cape Town Surf Report, Surf Forecast and Surf Webcams

I kept the hermits in a small 60l tank with a small hang on filter tank for 4 weeks or more and fed the eel about 1 or 2 a day. He used to love the chase :p.

I did the same for a black ribbon eel, but sadly the ribbon did not do as well after about 9 months so i lost him :nono:. If you lucky you may even find glass shrimp in the rock pools, these would do even better.

hope this helps. PS - I had a permit
 
Yes Mookz - that's the correct permit that Leslie was talking about. You can also go up to Langebaan, and collect hermits at the Langebaan lagoon - they tend to survive better in warm water (the shallow waters at langebaan lagoon has a temperature of 27 to 28 degrees celsius - I measured it with my dive computer).....
You find hundreds of these littel hermit crabs there.... as well as other types of crabs - in the lagoon shallows....
 
Or just search fishbase for girdled eel if the link doesn't wotk, its the one in the middle from Christmas Islands or something, try some small pieces of lancefish as well and wave it in front of him with a feeding stick, i have the same eel and i just chuck my food in, it searches my tank untill it finds a piece, if im right it was the dark botttom tank next to the door leading to the corals at sam's.
 
dan2381 said:
Or just search fishbase for girdled eel if the link doesn't wotk, its the one in the middle from Christmas Islands or something, try some small pieces of lancefish as well and wave it in front of him with a feeding stick, i have the same eel and i just chuck my food in, it searches my tank untill it finds a piece, if im right it was the dark botttom tank next to the door leading to the corals at sam's.
Click to expand...

Yup thats the one ;) thank you very much for the info.
 
Oh man, i wish i could still buy fish, but my tank is full, always wanted an eel. Anyway, what about the shrimp the fishermen use, j know the ones they pump from the sand. My friend uses them live for bait, and hes frontosas go mad for them. He doesn even have a permit, and they look like they have a really soft shell
 
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