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Shrimp Food

Joined
26 Oct 2008
Messages
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Location
Cheshire
Gang @ UKaps

Recently purchased some more red cherry shrimp as I lost eight from my previous purchase of 10, they didn't die straight away - fine one day - dead the next day and this happened over a serveral weeks.

I have now purchased some more and slightly concerned about food for them, I have read an arcticle that they will eat flake, but it "Not" recommended due to traces of copper sulphate within the flake - recommendation of food would be grateful.

Paul.
 
IME RCS will eat a anything going. There would be some benefits of buying shrimp specific food to cover their dietary requirements fully but mine will have a go at anything from cucumber, spinach, left over flake and granule food for fish and algae wafers. I would say if you kept still long enough they would have a go at you :D
They'll even eat each other if one dies as well as the cast off shell when they molt.
 
I would recommend any specific crustacean food that contains extra iodine, algae and are lower in protein. I like Hikari Shrimp/Crab Cuisine as they are super cheap on eBay, even Pets@Home's "Shrimp and Snail Pellets" are very good (actually made by New Era, who make very good fish food). Sometimes (but not often for cherry shrimp), crustaceans kept in freshwater aquariums can suffer from moulting complications from lack of iodine.

Shrimp need some copper too, and many including myself dose fertilisers with copper for plants and have hundreds of breeding Neocaridina davidi (mine are mixed colours now though). I feed many types of fish food that contain copper, many shrimp foods contain copper too.

Don't worry at all about feeding the flake, you have not idea what your shrimp were exposed to at the LFS/sellers tank, could have bee anything from medications to ammonia spikes. Could also just be a very old shrimp.
 
Well I've found that a simple algae food is the most popular - i have tried all the branded premium foods (shirakura etc) and frankly they've been ignored.
Foods I have found my shrimp like are:

Dennerle Crusta Gran
Genchem Biomax (2)
Shrimplabs Putty - I roll into small pea sized pieces and drop into the feeding dish.
Fresh Leaf! - I cooked some kale last night and wedged it above the substrate and didn't think too much of it, 2 hours later and the shrimp were fighting to get at it. Very popular more than spinach and i gather it's really very good for them.
It's also a great way to ball up snails if you're looking to pull them out of your tank.

I'm going to make a simple veg home made diy food batch soon - Kale, Spinach, lettuce, cucumber, carrot. clove of garlic, good healthy pinch of your already bought shrimp food/granules (optional at this point is to add a little bit of cooked white fish) then cooked, blended to a semi rough consistency add some non meat gelatine, roll it flat 2cm thick and place it on a tray, leave in fridge to set (overnight is usually fine) then cut into shrimp portions, bag it freeze it. Fish also love this.
Easy to do and you've got a great food source for much cheapness.
 
Well I've found that a simple algae food is the most popular - i have tried all the branded premium foods (shirakura etc) and frankly they've been ignored.
Foods I have found my shrimp like are:

Dennerle Crusta Gran
Genchem Biomax (2)
Shrimplabs Putty - I roll into small pea sized pieces and drop into the feeding dish.
Fresh Leaf! - I cooked some kale last night and wedged it above the substrate and didn't think too much of it, 2 hours later and the shrimp were fighting to get at it. Very popular more than spinach and i gather it's really very good for them.
It's also a great way to ball up snails if you're looking to pull them out of your tank.

I'm going to make a simple veg home made diy food batch soon - Kale, Spinach, lettuce, cucumber, carrot. clove of garlic, good healthy pinch of your already bought shrimp food/granules (optional at this point is to add a little bit of cooked white fish) then cooked, blended to a semi rough consistency add some non meat gelatine, roll it flat 2cm thick and place it on a tray, leave in fridge to set (overnight is usually fine) then cut into shrimp portions, bag it freeze it. Fish also love this.
Easy to do and you've got a great food source for much cheapness.

Just to add, I cooked the above, (no white fish) added a little montmorillonite powder and ended up with 2 freezer bags of small pea sized cubes. It was very popular the first time it was fed to the shrimp but because the food is blended and not 'whole' there is a chance that particles will splinter as the gelatine absorbs more water, therefore the use of a feed dish is recommended. In saying that if your feed regime is good, your shrimp will descend upon this and it will be gone very quickly.
 
I find a really good food to feed is Snowflake. You can find it on any online shrimp shop. It does not spoil the water so can be left indefinately. My shrimp always have this and a couple of times a month I'll give them something different. Dennerle have quite a collection of shrimp foods. Genchem foods are excellent too.
If you find these shrimp start dying off it may be moulting issues due to too soft or too hard water.
 
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