# best free food for shrimp ?



## eminor (30 Nov 2022)

Hello, i've seen video where they have tons of shrimp, how they do it ?

What food can i give to shrimp, they don't seem to like grapes or mosquito white larva ? thx

i want to breed red cherry


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## Aqua sobriquet (30 Nov 2022)

Have a look at some of this guys videos. He mentions a number of free foods including stuff like Stinging Nettle etc.


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## Aqua360 (30 Nov 2022)

nettle recipes are great, as are fallen leaves from a pesticide free area!


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## Aqua sobriquet (2 Dec 2022)

I’ve blanched and then dried nettle leaves for storage and my cherries like them sometimes.


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## Blacksheep1 (3 Dec 2022)

Shelled garden peas ( frozen are fine ) , blanched  veggies like green beans ( split in half and remove the seeds ) broccoli, kale, spinach , courgettes ( remove the seeds again , they don’t eat them and just make a mess ) are all great foods for  shrimp . If you’re making dinner just set a very small portion aside to cool and feed .

Be careful collecting nettle leaves and make sure they are off a walked path ( dog Pee !)

In autumn I collect lots of brown leaves ( mainly oak ) from the local woods before any rain comes, I might look odd with a bag for life full of leaves but who cares 😁 you want ones that are brown and have dropped but are still in tact and as clean and pest free as possible. Just wash them before you use and blanch if you feel the need. Another favourite leaf is Jack fruit but I order those.

Shrimp are grazers so biofilm and algae is great free food to have in your tank.


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## eminor (3 Dec 2022)

Blacksheep1 said:


> Shelled garden peas ( frozen are fine ) , blanched  veggies like green beans ( split in half and remove the seeds ) broccoli, kale, spinach , courgettes ( remove the seeds again , they don’t eat them and just make a mess ) are all great foods for  shrimp . If you’re making dinner just set a very small portion aside to cool and feed .
> 
> Be careful collecting nettle leaves and make sure they are off a walked path ( dog Pee !)
> 
> ...


My shrimp might be weird, they don't eat nettle, spinach, they don't care about, i tried blanching them and not, they just eat things on the soil, algae maybe, I'll try other vegetables I tried white mosquito larva, they don't care, in my sister tank they are going crazy with it.

I only have 10 shrimp for the moment, but even with that amount, they should go eat it vegetables first ? maybe they like algae better ?


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## Blacksheep1 (3 Dec 2022)

eminor said:


> My shrimp might be weird, they don't eat nettle, spinach, they don't care about, i tried blanching them and not, they just eat things on the soil, algae maybe, I'll try other vegetables I tried white mosquito larva, they don't care, in my sister tank they are going crazy with it.


Mine won’t eat nettle or spinach either if I’m honest ! They go crazy for peas , courgette and green beans though. 


eminor said:


> I only have 10 shrimp for the moment, but even with that amount, they should go eat it vegetables first ? maybe they like algae better ?


Mine will eat mosquito larvae but prefer the very rare offering of blood worms. Do you have a specific shrimp food or a powdered food to promote algae growth ? I always have a leaf in the tank for biofilm too 🙂


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## X3NiTH (3 Dec 2022)

You could try a button mushroom, it’s a good source for chitin, also I have fed a sliver of pork loin to my cherries and they went nuts over it. Both of these foods you can’t leave in the tank for longer than a day as they’ll both spoil quickly and affect water quality.


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## Aqua sobriquet (4 Dec 2022)

Mine like cooked shelled peas. I often save a couple from a Sunday lunch!


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## eminor (4 Dec 2022)

Blacksheep1 said:


> Mine won’t eat nettle or spinach either if I’m honest ! They go crazy for peas , courgette and green beans though.
> 
> Mine will eat mosquito larvae but prefer the very rare offering of blood worms. Do you have a specific shrimp food or a powdered food to promote algae growth ? I always have a leaf in the tank for biofilm too 🙂


i just add some bloodworm to get cladophora small bloom, shrimp always eat that algae, they eat everuthing exept the food i have hard time to get


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## Jaseon (5 Dec 2022)

Although a lot of the foods mentioned are not free its certainly cheap.

Apart from things like nettles etc i make my own. Marks aquatics (not to be confused with Marks shrimp tanks) does a good recipe. A batch of that stuff will last me 3 months or more.



 I make my own lollipop sticks for them as well out of 100% spirulina. There has actually been some research on the affects of spirulina on shrimp ( penaeus japonicus).



> Spirulina is a unicellular algae with good nutritional value. Its efficiency has been shown in Artemia salina and penaeid shrimp diets. To investigate the origin of this good nutritional value in shrimp, experiments were carried out on Penaeus japonicus juveniles. Pelleted diets containing various proportions of Spirulina from 0 to 8% were fed to shrimp. Good growth, survival and pigmentation were obtained with the diet containing 8% Spirulina. When replacing Spirulina completely by another single-cell ingredient source, lactic yeast, shrimp pigmentation was markedly reduced. Otherwise, growth performances were nearly similar. To identify the active fraction of Spirulina powder, an extraction was performed to separate two fractions, the lipidic and the lipid-free. Preliminary growth results of shrimp fed diets containing these extracted fractions showed that the active fraction of Spirulina was more likely found within the lipid-free fraction, rather than the lipidic fraction. Even though Spirulina can contribute positively to formulation of shrimp diets, it is too expensive (within the French economic context) to be incorporated at high percentage. But a substitution of lactic yeast for Spirulina is feasible as far as shrimp growth and survival are concerned. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/230201353_Use_of_Spirulina_in_shrimp_Penaeus_japonicus_diet



​


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## eminor (5 Dec 2022)

thanks guy, by the way, does this intake is small enough to avoid shrimplet to go in the filter ? baby snails can't pass it though


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## MichaelJ (5 Dec 2022)

eminor said:


> does this intake is small enough to avoid shrimplet to go in the filter ?



No, the tiny ones will easily get sucked in.  To my eyesight that looks like at least a ~2 millimeter or so opening. You can put a dense sponge over the inlet, but you would have to clean it frequently to ensure nominal flow.

Cheers,
Michael


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## eminor (5 Dec 2022)

MichaelJ said:


> No, the tiny ones will easily get sucked in.  To my eyesight that looks like at least a 1-2 millimeter or so opening. You can put a dense sponge over the inlet, but you would have to clean it frequently to ensure nominal flow.
> 
> Cheers,
> Michael


Yeah that's the problem, i need to find larger ppi sponge to avoid to need cleaning twice a week


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## MichaelJ (5 Dec 2022)

eminor said:


> Yeah that's the problem, i need to find larger ppi sponge to avoid to need cleaning twice a week


Yes, you dont have to go extremely dense... The PatMini's I am using are 100% shrimp safe - I wonder if you could actually use those sponges. I sort of think so.  

Cheers,
Michael


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## Jaseon (6 Dec 2022)

Good thing about putting a sponge over the intake you have the added bonus of a prefilter.


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## MichaelJ (6 Dec 2022)

Jaseon said:


> Good thing about putting a sponge over the intake you have the added bonus of a prefilter.


Good point!


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## Wookii (6 Dec 2022)

eminor said:


> Yeah that's the problem, i need to find larger ppi sponge to avoid to need cleaning twice a week



I always find sponge clogs too easily, I always have these on all my filter inlets:

Amazon product

Once you have enough shrimp they never need cleaning as it essentially becomes a shrimp and snail buffet, and they keep it spotless scavenging anything collected on it.


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## dw1305 (6 Dec 2022)

Hi all,


Jaseon said:


> Good thing about putting a sponge over the intake you have the added bonus of a prefilter.





MichaelJ said:


> The PatMini's I am using are 100% shrimp safe - I wonder if you could actually use those sponges. I sort of think so.


They look perfect.


Wookii said:


> I always find sponge clogs too easily,


That is why I like a <"really big pre-filter"> sponge.


Wookii said:


> I always have these on all my filter inlets


That might be optimal, a stainless steel filter guard, placed in the central hole of the "Koi sponge" block , it would do away with the need for a DIY foam collar etc.

cheers Darrel


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## MichaelJ (6 Dec 2022)

Wookii said:


> I always find sponge clogs too easily, I always have these on all my filter inlets:
> 
> Amazon product
> 
> Once you have enough shrimp they never need cleaning as it essentially becomes a shrimp and snail buffet, and they keep it spotless scavenging anything collected on it.



Hi @Wookii, I've never seen these before. A brilliant alternative if a sponge is an undesirable solution!

Cheers,
Michael


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## Wookii (6 Dec 2022)

MichaelJ said:


> Hi @Wookii, I've never seen these before. A brilliant alternative if a sponge is an undesirable solution!
> 
> Cheers,
> Michael



I'm a big maintenance-phobe, so digging around at the bottom of the tank to pull a sponge off the bottom of the filter inlet every week is a big no-no for me - I prefer to have the pre-filter (and I'd never be without a pre-filter) in the filter.


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