LDZ Posted March 11 Share Posted March 11 I use Kat's Aquatics calcium supplement/food to feed my shrimp calcium and other minerals. I absolutely love this product. Swear by it!!!! I also add Aqueon Shrimp Essentials to the water with every water change. I started using shrimp essentials in my first tank with shrimp before I knew about other calcium supplements. I have no issues with molting and every tank is full babies. My question is do I need to continue using the liquid shrimp essentials if I'm feeding calcium? They say if it's working for you don't change it but the shrimp essentials is really expensive and my aquarium numbers and shrimp collection only keeps getting bigger. I go through a lot of it at 5 mL per gallon dosage. What do you think??? Thank you for your time!!!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cmo1922 Posted March 12 Share Posted March 12 Hello! What is your gH kH and pH out of the tap, before you add the shrimp essentials? In my experience you will need a minimum level for these parameters if keeping neocardina shrimp, even if you are feeding calcium rich foods. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Biotope Biologist Posted March 12 Share Posted March 12 Quit using it. As said above test your water parameters. It’s basically a buffer that adds iron, magnesium, and potassium back into the water. Many plant fertilizer and water buffers also accomplishes this so if you do have a low gh from the tap look at gh up or one of the several other water buffers not directly marketed to shrimp keepers. It will be cheaper in the long run. Not to say that this aqueon product is a gimmick but it is very niche. It is meant as a supplement on nano aquaria where dosing water buffers may be rather difficult to measure 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tolstoy21 Posted March 12 Share Posted March 12 (edited) On 3/11/2024 at 6:53 PM, LDZ said: My question is do I need to continue using the liquid shrimp essentials if I'm feeding calcium? Nope. I've been keeping a line of crystal reds for a bunch of years now and have spawned literally thousands of them. I feed them the following -- Canned green beans (their main food) Stuff my plecos don't finish (zucchini, sweet potato, cucumber, etc) Left over spirulina flake (food my fish don't like) Decomposing oak leaves from some of my blackwater tanks (I get these from my yard during autumn raking) Dirty plants from other tanks covered in algae and gunk (best cleaning service there is) BacterAE (the only commercial food I use because I wanted a powdered food) All of this is to say that you don't really need to go out of your way with special foods or supplements if you don't want to. There is nothing wrong with commercial products, but a lot of vegetables contain enough calcium to keep your shrimp healthy if you don't want to pay for that. Link to list of veggies high in calcium Shrimp are scavengers and opportunists are heart. They would eat pizza crust if I dropped it in the tank (not recommended!) Unsolicited picture of one of my little garbage eaters below. 🙂 Edited March 12 by tolstoy21 4 1 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cmo1922 Posted March 12 Share Posted March 12 (edited) On 3/12/2024 at 3:27 PM, tolstoy21 said: Nope. I've been keeping a line of crystal reds for a bunch of years now and have spawned literally thousands of them. I feed them the following -- Canned green beans (their main food) Stuff my plecos don't finish (zucchini, sweet potato, cucumber, etc) Left over spirulina flake (food my fish don't like) Decomposing oak leaves from some of my blackwater tanks (I get these from my yard during autumn raking) Dirty plants from other tanks covered in algae and gunk (best cleaning service there is) BacterAE (the only commercial food I use because I wanted a powdered food) All of this is to say that you don't really need to go out of your way with special foods or supplements if you don't want to. There is nothing wrong with commercial products, but a lot of vegetables contain enough calcium to keep your shrimp healthy if you don't want to pay for that. Link to list of veggies high in calcium Shrimp are scavengers and opportunists are heart. They would eat pizza crust if I dropped it in the tank (not recommended!) Unsolicited picture of one of my little garbage eaters below. 🙂 Totally agree with above. Shrimp are literal garbage disposals and will eat anything and everything. You don't need specific foods to keep them alive. I feed mine fish food and discarded veggie scraps I have 100s. What you do need is to hit the general range of gH kH and pH for the species you are keeping. For neocardina they like harder more alkaline water (that is what I keep because that is what my water is, I don't fight my parameters). If you keep crystals like Tolstoy21 you will want softer water with lower kH and gH and typically more acidic pH. I don't have that water so I don't keep those guys. 😉 If you keep neocardina and your water lacks gH and kH, it may mean you need to add a buffer like seachem alkalinity and gH booster like seachem equilibrium if you want control. Or crushed coral if you want to go cheap as that will help with both gH and kH. I realized from your post you don't mention shrimp species so that is important to know to help you! Edited March 12 by cmo1922 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tolstoy21 Posted March 13 Share Posted March 13 @cmo1922 Believe it or not my caridina shrimp are pretty hardy in a wide range of water params (I've had them in tanks with a 9dGH and 300+ TDS). Likewise, I've had my neocaridina in my caridina tanks. The common factor for all these tanks is the Ph, which sits around 6.4 out of my tap, and also when I make RO and use a buffering substrate. My neocaridina are rock solid in that environment. The only problem with the above is that my CRS never ever breed in my tap water, even though that are as content as can be living in it. In general, all shrimp (caridina and neos) need a dGH between 6 - 9. That's another commonality amongst the types. Of course, my shrimp have been in my water params for many many generations, so it's highly probable they have grown very tolerant of it over time. More unsolicited shrimpy pics! (I know, I've posted these to the forum before. I need to take more/newer pics!) 1 1 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cmo1922 Posted March 13 Share Posted March 13 @tolstoy21I love your shrimp pics. I would love to keep them but am too scared to try the cardina in my tap!!! I fear I would kill them all🥺 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LDZ Posted March 13 Author Share Posted March 13 Sorry I didn't mention the they are neocardina and my pH is 7 and GH runs 120 KH 40. Thank you for all your advice 💜🦐 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tolstoy21 Posted March 14 Share Posted March 14 On 3/13/2024 at 7:53 PM, LDZ said: Sorry I didn't mention the they are neocardina and my pH is 7 and GH runs 120 KH 40. Thank you for all your advice 💜🦐 That should be totally fine. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt B Posted March 14 Share Posted March 14 @cmo1922 Don't be afraid! Give them a try and see what happens! I think you'd be surprised with what works! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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