Shrimp feeding questions & behavior at feeding time...

2041 Views 11 Replies 9 Participants Last post by 50089, Jul 20, 2012

CoolhandLocke

Discussion Starter · Jul 20, 2012

I've been unable to get a "solid" answer on how much I should feed my shrimp. Everyone has varied opinions from once every 2 days to twice a day to it depends on your paramaters, etc..etc.. yada, yada, yada...

Here's the deal. I have "around" 26 shrimp in a 20 gallon tank along with 3 little cory cats, 2 pygmy cory's, and 3 ottos.

My food stock is all Borneo, and I currently have barley, spinach, wild, color, and grow. I also have some tetra flakes, although I don't use those to much.

I have read that it's easy to overfeed your shrimp and kill them which made me wary as I also read from several places "do not leave any food in the tank that the shrimp cannot finish within a few hours". The problem is nobody ever specifies how many shrimp that's for, how many flakes per amount of shrimp or anything else.

In a nutshell, 26 shrimp..20 gallon tank, 4 corys, 2 pygmy corys, and 3 ottos...

Advice on "quantity" is appreciated, I feed them something different when I do feed them so I have variety, just don't know how much to give them.

I'll get to the "behavior" part of this once I can figure the amount out.

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somewhatshocked

· #2 · Jul 20, 2012

You could have 26 shrimp or 2,600 shrimp. My rule of thumb is: remove anything that's not eaten within 3-4 hours, regardless of the amount food and amount of shrimp. It really depends upon how much your particular shrimp eat in a given period. After a week or two of feedings, you'll eventually have a good understanding of how much to feed.

Note: some foods can be left in the tank for 24 hours, though, and won't foul your water. Things like Repashy and many sinking wafers.

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randyl

· #3 · Jul 20, 2012

Feeding less is the safer route, feeding more then they grow faster but you need to monitor the water quality more closely. Other than that, see what was said on #2.

Not every tank is the same. I have one tank with 10 CRS and they just aren't interested in anything I feed them, the other tank with 18 CRS and they swarm at anything I put in. So the first tank doesn't get fed much and the second got more, and I'm not concerned about them starving.

That said, with fish in the same tank I find everything gets more complicated.

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cantsay39

· #4 · Jul 20, 2012 (Edited)

honestly it's all depends 1 stick of the spinach stick definitely can feed your shrimps and with the fishes you might need to throw in 2 wafer.. 1 stick 2 wafer might able to served the purposed~ feed once a day, or if you're too busy skip one day is fine, they will do fine with a cycle tank.

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GeToChKn

· #5 · Jul 20, 2012

randyl said:
Feeding less is the safer route, feeding more then they grow faster but you need to monitor the water quality more closely. Other than that, see what was said on #2.

Not every tank is the same. I have one tank with 10 CRS and they just aren't interested in anything I feed them, the other tank with 18 CRS and they swarm at anything I put in. So the first tank doesn't get fed much and the second got more, and I'm not concerned about them starving.

That said, with fish in the same tank I find everything gets more complicated.

I got a tank like that too. CRS are breeding and doing fine in it, but they never eat food usually. It's my smallest yet my oldest established tank.

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Kunsthure

· #6 · Jul 20, 2012

Will all your tank inhabitants eat the same food? The fish need to be fed every day which means the shrimp will eat every day too. I'm not familiar with the BW line so I can't say put X amount in. I would try to find the consensus foods and feed enough of them so there is some left for the shrimp after the cories have had their fill. And then remove whatever hasn't been finished in four hours, if you want to follow the "rule." I personally leave the food in as long as the shrimp are actively eating it, which is sometimes overnight.

-Lisa

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CoolhandLocke

Discussion Starter · #7 · Jul 20, 2012

Okay thanks for the responses... Now that I have a little input I'll tell you what they do and how much I'm giving them.

They cannot seem to "finish" anything I put in the tank within 3-4 hours. I generally take a flake of the borneo product and break it into small parts and put it in their feeding dish. The dishes are a joke though, nice to look at but they always drag the flakes out so they are basically pointless for my flock of shrimp.

Initially I was putting a whole flake/granule in but they fought over it and there was definitely not enough for all of them to actually munch on a piece.
Last night I fed them 2 small broken chips from the borneo wild, and 1 small chip of spinach put into 2 different locations in the tank. 5 hours later they were still going at it although the smallest two pieces seemed to have disappeared, I pulled the bigger one out. This was actually the first time I think they have finished anything although the Tigers could have hid it as I saw one sitting on a piece and moving away whenever another shrimp came near.

The fish were a bit of an issue at first as they "attempt" to eat the chips but can't because they are too big for their mouths.. they generally just cause chaos although it doesn't hurt the shrimp so and I've come up with a way to separate them during feeding so problem solved there as soon as my Cholla comes in.

My tigers have gotten to where they will actually grab a piece from the dish and swim away with it while the oranges basically have a mosh pit with the food and don't try to take it away to hide. Very different behavior between the two species. The oranges will also follow the food if i put it in front of them then move it slowly across the tank. They will basically take it from my fingers while the tigers will not. Interesting to say the least...

In a nutshell, up until now I've been feeding via the "breaking flake" method every other day and pulling out what they don't finish after 3-6 hours. That being said, they always seem very hungry although there is plenty to scavenge on in the tank.

Don't think I'm starving them by any means, but it is hard to judge right now as everyone does things differently.

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randyl

· #8 · Jul 20, 2012

I don't think you need to change anything, all sounds good to me. Problem with feeding them broken pieces is they do try to "take out".

It's when you put food in and they stop coming that's when you have a problem.

CoolhandLocke said:
Okay thanks for the responses... Now that I have a little input I'll tell you what they do and how much I'm giving them.

They cannot seem to "finish" anything I put in the tank within 3-4 hours. I generally take a flake of the borneo product and break it into small parts and put it in their feeding dish. The dishes are a joke though, nice to look at but they always drag the flakes out so they are basically pointless for my flock of shrimp.

Initially I was putting a whole flake/granule in but they fought over it and there was definitely not enough for all of them to actually munch on a piece.
Last night I fed them 2 small broken chips from the borneo wild, and 1 small chip of spinach put into 2 different locations in the tank. 5 hours later they were still going at it although the smallest two pieces seemed to have disappeared, I pulled the bigger one out. This was actually the first time I think they have finished anything although the Tigers could have hid it as I saw one sitting on a piece and moving away whenever another shrimp came near.

The fish were a bit of an issue at first as they "attempt" to eat the chips but can't because they are too big for their mouths.. they generally just cause chaos although it doesn't hurt the shrimp so and I've come up with a way to separate them during feeding so problem solved there as soon as my Cholla comes in.

My tigers have gotten to where they will actually grab a piece from the dish and swim away with it while the oranges basically have a mosh pit with the food and don't try to take it away to hide. Very different behavior between the two species. The oranges will also follow the food if i put it in front of them then move it slowly across the tank. They will basically take it from my fingers while the tigers will not. Interesting to say the least...

In a nutshell, up until now I've been feeding via the "breaking flake" method every other day and pulling out what they don't finish after 3-6 hours. That being said, they always seem very hungry although there is plenty to scavenge on in the tank.

Don't think I'm starving them by any means, but it is hard to judge right now as everyone does things differently.

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pejerrey

· #9 · Jul 20, 2012

my take is:

In my 30gal:
If the food is abandoned and covered in snails I take it out. If its covered in shrimps, even for a couple of days I let hem eat it all. Feed every other day about 80 shrimp.

In my 6 gallon:

I leave certain foods in for 24 hrs maximum if they are covered in shrimp. If they lost interest I take them out earlier. I feed every 3rd day. 16 shrimp.

IME, I tested the water for ammo, no2 and no3 while feeding every other day and taking the food out the same day vs leaving it in there and the water parameters in my 30 gal were the same as when I started but the 6 gallon was building up no3. I tested at the end of a whole week. This is my experience only and I have a lot of filtration and the 30 has medium light/co2 vs 6gallon low light no co2... which Im sure affects the results.

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cantsay39

· #10 · Jul 20, 2012

trust me if my shrimps don't finish it, my snails do... they group together hogging all the food, i wonder if my otto got left with any...

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GEM 35shrimps

· #11 · Jul 20, 2012 (Edited)

As often as you could, until they cant finished it and left the food.
shrimps eat all the time if they are healthy, you can see their arms alway moving.
But don't overfed, this is more danger than starving your shrimps.
With a good cycled and well-balanced 100L tank 50PRL can live without being fed for more than two weeks.

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50089

· #12 · Jul 20, 2012

At least you see yours eating, I never do lol I just got some a couple of weeks ago (my first hand at trying shrimp) and they're in a 40 gal with small community fish. My fish seem to eat everything I give them so I'm not sure what the snails and shrimp are eating but so far they're still alive and one is berried so I guess they eat something. The other night I wedged a veggie wafer inside the driftwood...not sure if they ate it though, I think the fish may have found it first.

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