Feeding Yellow Watchman

[Nemo's Dada]

I have a pair of Yellow Watchman in a 24g NanoCube. They seem really healthy and active. One is always outside on guard duty and the other one hides in a cave. The problem is that when I try to feed them mysis shrimp, my cleanup crew rushes in and scares them. The dominant one usually scores some food but the one that hides in the cave doesn't get much. When I add more food, I get a red slime algae outbreak on my sand. Short of getting rid of my Nassarius snails, what should I do?

 

BTW, what is the purpose for having Nassarius snails?

[MrMoFo]

its not the snails scraing your watchman its you...i also have a watchman he loves to eat but when i walk up to the tank he swims away really really fast im srue you know what i mean, i feed my fish with a turkey baster and they love it the watchman actually comes up to the baster and eats... if this doesnt work for you try letting the food out on the top of the water then it will float down into the tank, but just be careful about over feeding night get some algae

[offsprg01]

to clean you sand that's what lol. you answered your own question in your post. anyway not to worry i used to go weeks with out seeing my watchman. that's been almost 2 years ago now. they are eating, just not when you are around. wait for them to get more comfortable with their home. then they will come out more often when you are around. especially once they begin to associate you with food.

[rikbalbin]

i just got a watchman and he is eating mysis but, im not sure how much and how often to feed. also i have a small feather duster that came with my live rock. i have been feeding him marine snow but, i also dont know often to feed it. i feed it 2.5 cc at a time. anybody have any advise for me.thanks.

[Nemo's Dada]

Well here's an update. One of the YWG apparently got into a fight either with the other YWG or one of my cleanup crew. His jaw looked like it was dislocated. He couldn't eat and one morning I found a hermit munching on his remains.

 

So the other YWG, the one that was always out front, continued to stay out front even more. He would see me coming and just stay there. I would drift food down to him and he would swim up to get it. Excess food in the beginning caused a cyno outbreak. It's going away now that I cut back on the amount of food. But in the last two days, the YWG has been hiding in a cave in the back. I guess something scared him so he hides all the time now. It sucks because he used to always be out front.

 

Maybe I should get another one as a mate?

[Nemo's Dada]

rik,

 

Don't feed too much mysis. It caused a bad cyno outbreak for me. I cut up the mysis shrimp into really tiny pieces. The YWG I have is about 1.5 inches long. He will only eat about 1 to 1.5 mysis shrimp that has been cutup. He won't eat anymore if he's full. Too much food and that nasty cyno will pop up everywhere.

[szesteve]

Guys, I've 2 questions about the YWG.

 

1) Do they sift through your sand?

2) Do they create tunnels?

 

I'm considering one but am trying to avoid gobies that create tunnels.

 

Thanks!

[Nemo's Dada]

Mine doesn't really sift sand. He'll pick up mouthfuls around him but he doesn't go all over like a sleeper goby. Also, I haven't seen him dig tunnels so I don't think so.

 

The main reason I didn't want to get a pistol shrimp is that my LR sits on the substrate not on the glass bottom. So if there were lots of tunnels, I'm afraid of a collapse.

[rikbalbin]

thanks for the info dada