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Cherry Shrimp Feeding


NanotankBank
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I do feed my shrimp, even in tanks where there are fish getting fed daily and theoretically the shrimp could eat the crumbs the fish don't get. I put in shrimp pellets when the tank is dark at night, so the shrimp have a chance to eat while the fish are not active. 

In my shrimp-only breeding tank, I feed 3x a week and they have oak leaves, cholla wood and plants and algae to pick off in between. That said, I have lot of live plants in the tank and those help keep the tank from getting high in nitrates.

Edited by PineSong
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How old is your tank? That would kinda help  to understand how much biofilm available to them all the time.

I personally would drop a piece of catappa leaf and make sure they won't be starving just in case. When it decays around 2 weeks, it provides lots of food source to them. I keep a piece in my tanks all the time. I'm more of a "better safe than sorry" guy. Make sure it does not impact your water parameters much tho, as 5 gallon is a small tank.

I never feed shrimp directly but I keep mine in community tank, so they always scavenge something including leftover fish food all the time. They even go for snellos I make for my snails. But if it is a shrimp only tank, I would feed calcium rich shrimp foods like 2-3 times a week.

Generally you can understand if shrimp is hungry or not. When u drop a food and they swarm around, that shows they are hungry. If they don't seem interested at all, they are either not hungry, or they just didn't like that food specifically.

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On 1/29/2023 at 12:01 AM, Remi de Groot said:

With only 5 shrimps I don't think there is any reason to feed.

Can they efficiently meet their protein and calcium needs without feeding and only feeding on plant matter and biofilm?

They usually scavange for everything in a community tank or in nature, which is much more than decaying plant debris and biofilm in the tank from what I observe.

They might not starve without additional food maybe, but I'm not sure they can meet their calcium/protein needs with decaying plant matter/available biofilm. They need a variety in their diet just like fish, even in small groups,  imo.

I would provide shrimp pellets and algae wafers from time to time personally. Just feed lightly as 5 shrimp wont eat much in size ofc. And highly recommend the catappa leaf. It is likely to have babies after some time and that decaying catappa leaf may help a lot to babies to get fed especially.

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On 1/28/2023 at 3:25 PM, Lennie said:

Can they efficiently meet their protein and calcium needs without feeding and only feeding on plant matter and biofilm?

They usually scavange for everything in a community tank or in nature, which is much more than decaying plant debris and biofilm in the tank from what I observe.

They might not starve without additional food maybe, but I'm not sure they can meet their calcium/protein needs with decaying plant matter/available biofilm. They need a variety in their diet just like fish, even in small groups,  imo.

I would provide shrimp pellets and algae wafers from time to time personally. Just feed lightly as 5 shrimp wont eat much in size ofc. And highly recommend the catappa leaf. It is likely to have babies after some time and that decaying catappa leaf may help a lot to babies to get fed especially.

I got TopFin Algae thin wafers. Super small and actually have kelp as the main ingredient, along with other protein sources. I figured putting 1-2 of those in there would only benefit and not cause any spikes of ammonia being so tiny 

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You may also consider buying a small shrimp feeding dish and remove uneaten food after some time. That may help a lot I believe and make it very easy to control everything. If I had a shrimp only tank, I would directly buy one myself!

Calcium plays an important role in shrimps diet. So I would consider feeding something that has calcium in it and made for shrimp as well. It helps a lot with molting and such.

Some brands have really small packages of shrimp food, so that would not cause a waste I bet. I use hikari crab cuisine mainly for my snails. Hikari also has shrimp cuisine. I would probably get that one if I were to feed it to my shrimps only. There are other good brands available in US but not in my country, so I have not tried them yet.

You may like this post!

https://www.aquariumcoop.com/blogs/aquarium/shrimp-food

Have fun with your  lil colony! 🙂

Edited by Lennie
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On 1/28/2023 at 3:37 PM, Lennie said:

You may also consider buying a small shrimp feeding dish and remove uneaten food after some time. That may help a lot I believe and make it very easy to control everything. If I had a shrimp only tank, I would directly buy one myself!

Calcium plays an important role in shrimps diet. So I would consider feeding something that has calcium in it and made for shrimp as well. It helps a lot with molting and such.

Some brands have really small packages of shrimp food, so that would not cause a waste I bet. I use hikari crab cuisine mainly for my snails. Hikari also has shrimp cuisine. I would probably get that one if I were to feed it to my shrimps only. There are other good brands available in US but not in my country, so I have not tried them yet.

You may like this post!

https://www.aquariumcoop.com/blogs/aquarium/shrimp-food

Have fun with your  lil colony! 🙂

👍🏻 Thanks! I do have snail shells in the substrate to sort of give calcium, I heard somewhere that can help. Not sure how much truth there is to that though!

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On 1/29/2023 at 12:39 AM, NanotankBank said:

👍🏻 Thanks! I do have snail shells in the substrate to sort of give calcium, I heard somewhere that can help. Not sure how much truth there is to that though!

I assume it may help for you to have some calcium in the water column if your water is on the acidic side and if they start to dissolve, but I'm not sure to what extend. And if your water has high ph/kh, just like mine, I still have bladder snail shells sitting on my substrate 0 dissolving from a year ago. You don't want acidic water with cherry shrimp from the start anyway

Also they ideally should have calcium in water column and calcium in their diet. Those two kinda needs to be combined. Snail shells, probably be providing calcium to water column, if they ever dissolve by any means. I don't think they will be able to graze on them, however

On 1/29/2023 at 12:27 AM, NanotankBank said:

I got TopFin Algae thin wafers. Super small and actually have kelp as the main ingredient, along with other protein sources. I figured putting 1-2 of those in there would only benefit and not cause any spikes of ammonia being so tiny 

We dont have that brand in where I live so I have no experience. But water parameters tend to go off much easier in a small size tank, especially when it is set for 5 shrimp bioload imo. So I would probably get a shrimp feeding dish and remove uneaten food after an hour or so.

Edited by Lennie
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On 1/28/2023 at 3:46 PM, Lennie said:

I assume it may help for you to have some calcium in the water column if your water is on the acidic side and if they start to dissolve, but I'm not sure to what extend. And if your water has high ph/kh, just like mine, I still have bladder snail shells sitting on my substrate 0 dissolving from a year ago. You don't want acidic water with cherry shrimp from the start anyway

Also they ideally should have calcium in water column and calcium in their diet. Those two kinda needs to be combined. Snail shells, probably be providing calcium to water column, if they ever dissolve by any means. I don't think they will be able to graze on them, however

We dont have that brand in where I live so I have no experience. But water parameters tend to go off much easier in a small size tank, especially when it is set for 5 shrimp bioload imo. So I would probably get a shrimp feeding dish and remove uneaten food after an hour or so.

What I figured, I’ll do that then. pH is the hardest parameter to control in my tanks. Tap fluctuates from 8.0-8.6. Then the wood and substrate in my aquariums drops it to 6.4-7.0. It’s quite frustrating lol

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On 1/29/2023 at 1:04 AM, NanotankBank said:

What I figured, I’ll do that then. pH is the hardest parameter to control in my tanks. Tap fluctuates from 8.0-8.6. Then the wood and substrate in my aquariums drops it to 6.4-7.0. It’s quite frustrating lol

I assume you are using an active substrate then?

They are usually better for caridinas rather than neocaridinas if I'm not wrong. If it makes that much difference, I guess your kh is on a low end aswell? Or maybe ends up that way due to the substrate you are using I guess. Because I haven't seen any drops on ph in my new tank where I have lots of driftwood and tropica aquasoil. But again, I have a high kh. Kh helps to keep ph stable a lot. And mine is in a level more than anyone ever needs, and considerably even too much tbf.

The key is keeping water parameters stable for shrimp. They usually don't take water parameter changes that well, even tho neocaridinas are generally hardier than most other shrimps in the hobby. I would try to keep it stable, fluctuations likely will harm them, especially adults. I would probably keep the water changes minimal and do it on different days in smaller size instead of one big water change, as it will be likely to fluctuate a lot with every water change due to the difference you have between the parameters. Over the course, your active substrate and driftwood will start causing a less and less decrease I believe. You can slowly adapt your tank to tap water in a very long period but with small baby steps. Keep parameters in check just in case!

5 shrimp bioload is very very small anyway. So you won't need to do lots of big water changes unless anything goes wrong anyway.

I would def not take the risk of ammonia spike of uneaten food in this scenario. So keeping an eye on uneaten food became even more important here to me. Because uneaten food => potential ammonia spike => big water changes causing very different parameters to shrimp and causing shock effect

 

Edited by Lennie
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On 1/28/2023 at 10:25 PM, Lennie said:

Can they efficiently meet their protein and calcium needs without feeding and only feeding on plant matter and biofilm?

I've seen way more shrimp die because of overfeeding then because of a lack of Calcium. 

Edited by Remi de Groot
My phone is tripping. Can't finish my post...
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My phone won't let me finish my last post. So I make it a double post. Sorry for that.

What I wanted to say is that your water should be a source of Calcium as well for the shrimp. I've never had any Calcium related problems in one of my tanks tbh.The fact that Nanotankbank wants to add 2 of the pallets is exactly why I would suggest someone with just a few shrimps not to feed. The change of overfeeding is just so big.

If you start feeding: look for a complete food balanced for shrimp. And feed as little as possible with that food. (So the smallest size you can brake the wafer/stick into) and remover the left overs after an hour. Do the feeding only once a week and only start to add an second day in the week if the shrimp actually finished the food provided within the hour.

 

 

Edited by Remi de Groot
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On 1/28/2023 at 11:41 AM, NanotankBank said:

Hello,

I’m eager to hear peoples opinions on feeding cherry shrimp. Currently I have 5 in my 5gal low tech aquarium, there is PLENTY of plant debris and copepods in the water, so I’m curious to see if I really need to feed them some algae wafers. 


At most you'd be feeding shrimp 3x a week. At best 2x a week. Shrimp should be feeding off the things in the tank, not what you're feeding into the tank.   Things like feeding would be useful when the colony size is too big and when you're basically in a situation where the tank isn't providing the aufwuchs you need day to day.  Repashy soilent green is what I recommend as well as a few of their other recipes.

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