Powder or Pellet Food?

[Cakelake]

I was wondering if it was better to feed powdered spiralina or pellet spiralina. My thought with the pellet was that anything uneaten could be removed. The powder though is already broken up nice and small for them to snack on. I know it’s a silly question but I’m planning on purchasing new food for the shrimp and would like to know which form is the best! Thanks!

[Varanus]

I don't think there is a "best" food for these guys, they will eat pretty much any pet fish or invertebrate food (given their preference for spartan environments they can't afford to be picky), but mostly rely on biofilm. As such you needn't offer extra food more than once a month, if even that (if there is more than a little visible algae in the tank then you don't really need to feed at all, not that the shrimp won't enjoy a occasional treat of course).

But for the sake of cleanliness and being able to easily tell if all the offered food has been consumed, I would go for pellets. The shrimp can gnaw on and eat such food just fine.

[xbeaugaming]

I use Hikari Crab Cuisine and it works well. One pellet per month for my tank of 10 shrimp and 10 snails. It's more than enough and they gobble it up within a day.

[Oople]

I have tried flake and micro pellet but ended up sticking with the flake because it was easier to feed tiny amounts for my small tank. Also the shape made it easier for more than 1 shrimp to eat at a time.

[Dch48]

Personally I think Spirulina powder is the best. You can't see if they eat it but I'm sure they do. It mimics the food they find in nature more closely in my opinion and has no added ingredients they don't really need. I put a tiny amount in my tank about every 2 weeks. I have tried small pieces of pellets and veggie rounds but they only nibble for a while and then move on leaving the rest behind. They do fight over it though. My new Red Claw Crab is the same way. He nibbles at pellets a bit and then moves on. I don't think he likes the harder dried stuff. I gave him half of a blueberry and he went nuts over that. He also likes the flowery top of broccoli but not the stem. My freshwater shrimp will not touch fresh veggies at all but love pellets and flake foods and dried seaweed. They're all different.

[Vorteil]

Should you feed IMHO pure freeze dried spirula is best. I've used it in the past at the begining. I no longer feed any of my tanks. I would rry to stay away from any protein based foods. These will affect water quality.

[Mustafa]

Feeding a Supershrimp tank is different from feeding other animals. The main purpose of feeding once every blue moon (i.e. every few weeks or, even better, months) is to "fertilize" the system with nutrients so that the actual "live food" of our shrimp (biofilm) can grow on various surfaces. The advantage of small flakes or pellets is that you can observe how much of it actually gets eaten so you can adjust the amount for next time. This is important to determine how hungry the shrimp really are. In a tank full of biofilm thriving everywhere the shrimp won't be too voracious when you throw in food. Powdered food kinda just disappears into all corners of the tank including the substrate eventually and it's really hard to judge how much of it the shrimp really ate.