| I have had 3 Cypraea
tigris that I have gotten through dealers here in NM over the years.
You want: |
| 1) Oxygenated water,
so your pump with oxygen should do. A more stable environment would
be a "natural" reef-type system (layered substrate which will
support dinitrification from ammonia all the way to nitrogen gas) or an
artificial system with dinitrification since you do not want the nitrates
to build up - deadly to most invertebrates. Living at 5000 ft in Albuquerque
limits my access to fresh seawater so I do everything artificially - that
is why I have created an "artificial" reef system in my tank.
Another small submersible water pump in th system will keep the water moving
so you do not have any areas of low oxygen in the system. |
| 2) Cypraea tigris,
as has been mentioned loves algae. Since I try to suppress algae growth
with my living corals in my tank, I but dehydrated compressed algae (red,
brown and green) and he loves it all (pet store). |
| 3) Need adequately
support of Ca/Sr so he can make new shell (most of mine were not full-grown
when I got them) material and keep up the beautiful luster. Putting
just quartz peebles will not do this. Either you need to artificially
add Ca/Sr to the system, change the "fresh" seawater often, or
the easiest is to get a substrate of crushed aragonitic sand on the bottom
(with your seawater above) and it will "buffer" the Ca and Sr
concentrations in the seawater to the correct concentrations for the Cypraea.
DO NOT USE CALCITE OR CRUSHED ROCK FROM ANY GEOLOGIC FORMATION, THE CONCENTRATIONS
OF CA AND SR WILL BE TOO LOW - GO TO YOUR LOCAL PET STORE!!! |
| 4) Not sure
what else you have in the tank, might have to make some adjustments. |
| 5) Keep at 72 - 78 degrees F. Use a heater is necessary. Careful with the heater, put it along a wall and not in a corner. Lost a 3 year old when he got caught between the heater and the corner when the heater came on - fried cypraea!!! Not very smart creatures. |
| Paul |
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