# Food and shrimps-How.



## plamski (Oct 27, 2009)

I’d like to know how you are feeding your shrimps. Introducing very small amount of food /risk –shrimps can miss it/ or large amount of food and after 3 -4 hour you take it out left over’s. In second case how are you cleaning extra food? Or there is some better way.


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## JohnPaul (Aug 28, 2006)

One, I keep snails (MTS and/or European ramshorns) in all my shrimp tanks. They clean up anything the shrimp don't eat.

As for missing food, the best way to feed a shrimp tank is NOT to drop a whole big pellet of something in there. Instead, take a small amount of food and crush it into almost a powder, and then disperse it throughout the tank. If you are using flake food, it is easy enough to just rub it between your two fingers. If you are dealing with pellet food of some kind, I find usually I have to break it up by smashing it between two spoons. Either way, once you have the powder grab a pinch of it and disperse it throughout the tank. It will settle down on everything and as the shrimp move about grazing, they will find the little food particles.

This also has the advantage where, if you have a lot of shrimp, the bigger ones don't bully the little ones away from the food like you often see in a feeding frenzy around one pellet on a tank bottom. When the food is evenly dispersed, even the smaller/weaker shrimp will find their fair share.


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## Gordonrichards (Apr 28, 2009)

I feed my shrimp a little bit every day in the same location of the tank. You can throw food everywhere, but by putting it in one location, the snails will eat any refuse.

The worst thing you can do is overfeed your tank, no matter what you're keeping.


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## tex627 (Nov 2, 2008)

check it out. http://www.theshrimpjournal.com/2009/07/feeding-and-food.html


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## bluegardener (Jun 5, 2006)

I can see that there are some advantages to JohnPaul's method, but I like to drop in big chuncks of food. The shrimp are good at sensing (smelling?) the food and if it is in one location then they go right for it and less of it is lost. I don't worry about cleaning up the food and often the pieces are in the tank for a few days before being totally consumed. I have a large tank and I feed fresh, blanched veggies more than half the time, both of which make this easier on the tank conditions. With any size tank, constancy is key. In my tank there is always a group of shrimp munching on whatever food is in there. If they stopped eating it at any point I would probably take it out.


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## virgo888 (Jun 25, 2009)

I break up the pellets and it's better have less than too much food. for 300 cherries, i put 4-5 pellets.


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## James0816 (Oct 9, 2008)

I find it hard to overfeed. Sometimes I even wonder if I'm feeding enough. ;o)

Just grab a big pinch, and while holding it over the outflow of the HOB, rub fingers together to break up the bigger flakes.

Flow from the filter does a good job with dispursement and everyone is happy. Briggs do their thing throughout the course of the day as well which keeps things nice and tidy.


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## asukawashere (Mar 11, 2009)

I drop a couple of tetra colorbits (or whatever they're calling them nowadays) in the same corner of the tank every time I feed (once every other day or so). The MTS, ramshorns, & pond snails munch anything the shrimp miss, and any extra nutrients tend to feed the coat of diatoms on the walls of the tank (which, in turn, become live food for shrimp to pick at). If the snails get out of control, I grab a bunch of 'em and toss them in my 37gal discus tank, where there's a colony of assassin snails to keep them at bay.

And, of course, the giant wads of moss and floaters and other assorted vegetation are in there for any shrimps to nibble on if so they desire.


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