Hey everyone...
I have a 5 .5 gallon cherry breeding tank,
and I am curious how much you all feed your cherries...
I have a lot of cherries in it, maybe 50?
I'll be getting rid of some of them soon,
but was wondering how much to feed?
I've been feeding algae wafers, and
had been feeding 2 algae wafers every other day.
I didn't feed the Crab and lobster bites before because they would fall
thru the cracks in my old gravel.
Now I have sand, so I can feed them the bites.
Is there a proper amount, I don't want to feed too much....
nor too little..
Thanks for any info you can give.
LOVE JBOT
I think there's almost always algae... enough for their little mouths even if it isn't really visible. I wouldn't advise against supplementing totally... but less might be good.
I like to feed my 3 tanks of Cherry shrimps Zucchini slices that have been wrapped in a damp paper towel and Nuked in the Microwave for 20 seconds at high power. They last about 36 hours in the tank and the baby shrimp love it. I also feed them flake food in the morining, brine shrimp pellets in the afternoon, Hikari sinking wafers (about half a wafer broken up in 3 pieces) in the evening and I haven't had but one death from one tank. I do weekly 30% water changes and all tanks are heavily planted. Shrimp appear to be happy campers. According to that article, I am grossly overfeeding but I have a growing colony of over 75 shrimp in a 10 gallon tank. I don't feed a lot at one time but I do feed frequently (except for the zucchini which I feed once a week).
I found the advice about water changes interesting. Pretty much said that EI and shrimp do not mix. I will not say weather or not I agree with this, but my shirmp tank breeds them like flies, while my high tech EI tank kills them equally efficiently.
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I have hundreds(maybe thousands, they swarm like knats) of tiny shrimpish critters in my 10 gallon shrimp tank. I am starting to increase my supplimental feeding as I am noticing a decrease in vegitation (pretty sure the shrimp are eating my plants when they get too hungry).
I have a 10 gal shrimp tank with quite a few plants and i feed them a small chip of algae wafer every other day and maybe 4 bits of lobster crab bites on the other day . my rule is feed them half of what you think they need . Most people overfeed. They are always browsing and eating algae that grows in the tank. They are sensative to nitrate i tried ei on that tank since it has plants and they didnt do well at all now its a low tech tank I do water changes about 3 gal a wk but i dont dose and they are doing fine.
I found the advice about water changes interesting. Pretty much said that EI and shrimp do not mix. I will not say weather or not I agree with this, but my shirmp tank breeds them like flies, while my high tech EI tank kills them equally efficiently.
On a shrimp forum I'm on there's someone that insists that fertilizers will kill them (or at least prevent them from breeding). I'm sure we've all found that there are quite tolerable doses, though.
But since EI is basically a fertilizer blitzkrieg, I guess that would make sense.
My reading of the article felt that while the shrimp can take the fert, they can not take going from high fert to low fert with each 50-70% waterchange. To much of a parameter change too quickly.
In a perfect world I would like to have a sump anyway, perhaps this will be the straw... I have been thinking that a sump would help with smaller more frequent water changes.
If there is food remaining after a feeding that means you eith overfed or they don't really like the food. Either way you can cut back or try something new. Be sure to clean up the uneaten food.
I've had a couple of shrimp kills in my high-tech EI tank , to the extent that the last shrimp I bought went into a low tech tank. It does have Neons in it, but they seem to be co-existing pretty happily (although I know pretty much anything will eat baby shrimp of course.)
I am not sure if the ferts themselves did it, or the wildly fuctuation water parameters did. Either way, my successful shirmp tank is -0- tec at the moment (sun lit, no ferts, mattenfilter, etc...) It grows plants ok, and has -0- algea buildup.
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I am tempted to modify EI to remove the large waterchanges and see if I can keep shrimp going longer in it. I really miss hunting for shrimp...
When my cherries were breeding like crazy I was feeding a couple times a day in my 2.5 gallon. However I was feeding mostly freeze dried bloodworms and brine shrimp, they probably do not pollute the water as much as algae wafers.
I feed all my breeding tanks the same food... regular old Omega One Tropical Fish Flakes.
Feed as much as they will completely consume in about 4 hours (shrimp do not eat as fast as fish).
You will get MUCH better growth rates, a MUCH higher survival rate of the young, and better color.
Tom
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