Rarely feed shrimp?

[Sal]

Reading some of the post I notice planted tanks do not feed shrimp often if at all .

What is average others feed in semi planted or non planted with lights left on roughly 12 hours a day to get some algae ?

I have been feeding sinking algae pellets the shrimp eat them but mostly pick at the driftwood and java moss and seems the snails are for most part only one's who go out of their way to eat this and reproducing due to it (do not want).

Thank you

[Terran]

Well Ive never really been into proactively feeding my shrimp given what their natural diet is...rather I prefer keeping the tank, or establishing certain tank characteristics, in such a way that their natural food is as productive as it can be in the given water volume.
Additionally unplanted tanks should work equally well...
I have a few tanks that just have rocks stacked up in the tank like a cliff reaching all the way up near the surface of the tank but like 4-5 inches away from the front glass of the tank.... The more porous the rock the better...all sorts of animals will colonize these rocks over time...There will be so many animals, algae, and bacteria colonizing one fist sized rock effectively you can think of each rock as a plant in terms of its water 'cleansing' properties yet provides far more food for shrimp... Additionally on a given rock you have aerobic and anaerobic environments in close proximity to each other.


For the most part I never feed my shrimp tanks...occasionally I will throw some food in there though if Im looking to catch a bunch all at once...


One thing though in the tanks that I dont feed, the shrimp are much smaller...
they never really seem to reach their maximum size if the tank is populated to the maximum sustainable population (when no additional food is added)...

I just broke down my outdoor minipond....and added these shrimp to my indoor unfed tanks...(some went to my mother's hungry cichlids )....but these shrimp from outside are approximately 3 times larger than my indoor shrimp. They look huge in comparision...but plenty of the smaller indoor shrimp carry eggs and obviously some of these end up surviving....

So it is something to keep in mind...if nothing is reducing the shrimp population eventually the population will grow so large that the food the tank naturally provides is not enough food for the shrimps to make it to their full adult size...

I suppose you could remove random shrimp from an unfed tank keeping the population small and the remaining shrimp should have no problem reaching full size.

Regardless though if you dont mind smaller shrimp its kindof cool having this mini ecosystem I just bring the light and the water...

[Sal]

Lots of great info thank you very much. I use lots of driftwood and sand about 1/4 inch thick which the shrimp scavange through.

I asked the feeding question because noticed the shrimp mostly picked on the driftwood and the food was feeding the snails which I did not want.

I will still feed but only once or twice a week max if that but no longer daily.

When you kept your cherry shrimp outside during summer wasn't it to hot for breeding ?

My females are all with eggs but I have not had them long thus could have easily been with eggs when I got them.

Thanks.

[Mustafa]

When you kept your cherry shrimp outside during summer wasn't it to hot for breeding ?
.

I keep the wild ancestors of the red cherry shrimp outside and their habitat water heats up to almost 90 degrees in the afternoon sun during the summer...the shrimp don't seem to mind at all. I am very surprised actually. The water does cool down considerably (down to the low 70s..even high 60s) at night. And yes, I did see many very large egg-carrying females.

[Sal]

I would have never thought cherry shrimp could handle that . I just started keeping them but from what I read about temps did not think they could.

I have bred hundreds if not thousands of ghost shrimp outside by accident over 2 yrs as added a dozen in filterless 40 gallon tub where it gets warm though shaded (inside never bred) but never thought cherry shrimp could live over 80 for long.

[Carlo]

Regardless though if you dont mind smaller shrimp its kindof cool having this mini ecosystem I just bring the light and the water...

Do you have a filter?

[Terran]

Regardless though if you dont mind smaller shrimp its kindof cool having this mini ecosystem I just bring the light and the water...

Do you have a filter?

Well in this particular tank I rely on heavy rock scape and a pump to do the filtration for me...
so no carbon pads or ammonia pads bio-wheels or anything like that its just a pump that moves the water around a bit (Im planning a more passive system that eliminates the pump as well)...

Heres a picture.







The rocks are fossilized coral(limestone) that I use also in my saltwater tanks.
At first I used lava rocks and quartz (which kept the tank around 7.2-7.4 around what it comes out at the tap) but I experimented with the limestone and at first it seemed to stress the shrimp out but now they seem to be handling the ph change and most are carrying eggs.


Essentially I heard more and more about people using 'live rock' and strong water flow to handle the bulk of their 'filtration' in saltwater tanks and I began to think why wouldnt this work equally well in freshwater...

Now I wouldnt really say that my 'liverock' is mature yet because with my test rock eventually the limestone becomes a deep dark green under my lighting but it still seems to handle the bioload of this tank easily (prolly the gravel is doing most of it right now its been submerged for nearly 7 years)

Additionally I planted some grass in the substrate but that is growing slowly and you cant even see it in the pictures.


Since this is an experiment I went cheapo on the lighting fixtures lol. (canister lights from walmart 8 bucks for two)(limestone $0.25 per pound and come in huge coral blocks with fossilized snails and things all inside of them once I broke them up)