What and how to feed shrimp in the aquarium?

With the growing popularity of nano aquariums, there is a need for their small inhabitants, one of which is shrimp. Today there is a huge selection of these interesting pets. Despite their ubiquitous popularity, certain subtleties need to be known for conscientious content. We will discuss how and what you need to feed your aquarium shrimp in this article.

Aquarium shrimp are rightfully considered the aquarium orderlies. In fact, they are scavengers and eat whatever falls to the bottom. They can eat the yellowed leaves of aquarium plants, preventing them from starting to rot and poisoning the water, feed on algal fouling, helping to keep the home pond clean. They may even eat dead fish.

Each aquarium has hard-to-reach places that cannot be reached during cleaning. There are no such places for shrimps - they can easily crawl even behind the aquarium filter and like to sit on the filter sponge, looking for food there. But do not completely deprive them of a high-quality balanced diet, which contains carotenoids and spirulina.

These aquarium inhabitants feed on the following:

• dry sinking feed;
• live food (bloodworm, tubifex), when this food is consumed, the color of the shrimp becomes brighter;
• nettle leaves scalded with boiling water;
• spinach;
• cucumber;
• boiled store-bought shrimp;
• dandelion leaves.

These inhabitants of domestic reservoirs are gluttonous and are in search of food all the time.But it is undesirable to overfeed them - uneaten food will begin to rot and spoil the water, which can lead to loss of color, and in the future death of shrimp. In feeding aquarium inhabitants, you need to have a sense of proportion.

You will need to give such an amount of food that the pets will eat without a trace. For a small aquarium with 30–40 shrimps, 4–5 bottom tablets for catfish, which these shrimps love very much, will be quite enough. Among experienced aquarists, there is an unofficial rule that says: a sufficient amount of feed is what the shrimp eat without residue in 15 minutes.

For the convenience of controlling the amount of poured food, it is better to choose an open space in the aquarium, without any decorations, heaps and plants. Thus, important factors such as:

• when it is possible to remove uneaten food, when it comes to cucumber or other food in large pieces, which can quickly spoil the water in the aquarium;
• during feeding, all the shrimps run for food, so you can approximately count the number of your pets;
• while eating food, it is most convenient to observe them.

As stated earlier, shrimp are scavengers, but they will not eat completely rotten food.

It is best to feed shrimp or crayfish at a specific time. This is not connected with digestion, but with the time when they are awake. Since shrimp are ancient inhabitants that wake up when the lights are turned on, it is best to feed the food an hour after that. Many experts it is recommended to present external feed to shrimps once every 2-3 days, so as not to overfeed them. Finding food for themselves in the thickets of mosses, they can easily wait for the next feeding session.

Often, novice aquarists ask themselves the question: how to feed their pets according to all the rules. Even experts cannot give an unambiguous answer to such a question, since the diet of shrimp depends on the following factors:

• the presence of other inhabitants of the aquarium;
• the level of maturity of the aquarium environment, the presence of algae and other organics in it;
• the number of shrimps living in a given reservoir.

All experts are sure of one thing: overeating is much more harmful for shrimp than lack of feed. It has to do with their way of life. These babies are constantly moving, and they do it only in search of food, which provides them with the necessary physical activity. If there is an excess of feed, the shrimp may die.

Without additional nutrition, the described species can live for several days and feel great. With a well-balanced aquarium and the presence of algae and mosses in it, the feeding break can be up to 7 days.... Since aquarium shrimps are absolutely defenseless against any fish, aquarists are divided into those who keep shrimps only separately from other fish in a species aquarium (shrimp), others keep them in general - along with fish. Therefore, their feeding and diet are different.

When crustaceans are colonized in a common aquarium, where fish live and some species of plants grow, there will be no problems with nutrition, since shrimp eat everything that they can process, and therefore absolutely everything. If a film appears on the surface of the water, it will be eaten first of all, since it consists of microorganisms that these crustaceans love. Freshwater shrimps in the general aquarium will not refuse to eat blue and blue-green algae, which will be a real salvation for the owner of the aquarium.

These inhabitants of domestic reservoirs do not disdain to feast on pieces of plants left over from weeding, and even eat all the threads made of natural materials, which they use to tie mosses and other plants to snags and decorations. Even in the general aquarium after it has been completely cleared of pests do not forget to feed the shrimp. Not the least role for them is played by the quality, not the quantity of the available food.

After eating unwanted objects, it is time to feed the shrimp separately from the fish. For the first time, you will find treats for them in your refrigerator, namely: finely chopped zucchini, cucumber or pumpkin. Crustaceans love these vegetables, but they quickly spoil the water in the aquarium, so do not leave these fresh vegetables in the water for more than 15 minutes. This time will be enough for a meal. In a general aquarium, these crustaceans can do much more good than snails.

When a separate “species” reservoir is allocated for keeping shrimp, in which there are no fish, then there will be no fish food residues. For this reason, you will have to pay a little more attention to feeding your crustaceans, which will not cause any difficulties. In addition to everything that shrimp eat in the general aquarium, it is possible to add dried leaves of fruit trees (apple, pear, cherry) to the diet. Well eaten nettle leaves in fresh, scalded boiling water or after defrosting. Will not refuse and from pieces of oak leaves and dandelion leaves.

Will not be superfluous live food such as bloodworms and tubifex, but only not as the main diet, but exclusively as a supplement to plant nutrition. Necessary right combine plant and live foods.

Many owners of this species are sure that there is nothing better than an expensive branded food. But keeping shrimp healthy all the time on dry food will not work, since variety in food is necessary. In fairness, it can be noted that expensive food based on almond leaves is really given to shrimps, but it is impossible to keep crustaceans on a constant diet with such a mixture, since it contains a lot of tannins.

No matter how well-known and advertised feeds are, variety in food is important. Aquarium shrimp need both animal and plant food. Experts admit for a while content on a specific composition, created specifically for aquarium crustaceans. In appearance, these feeds resemble bottom tablets for catfish, only much smaller and do not crumble with prolonged exposure to water, but slightly increase in volume, without leading to water spoilage.

Each owner of a flock of shrimp should be aware of the inadmissibility of being in the water with these aquarium inhabitants of any compounds containing copper, even in the composition of medicines. This leads to the sudden death of crustaceans. Since many shrimp colors are the result of painstaking work of breeders, they tend to lose color and become transparent. This factor is important to consider. This problem occurs in many owners of species such as cherry shrimp, blue, blue, black, yellow. The following factors affect color loss:

• conditions of detention (quality of water and food);
• closely related breeding - from time to time you will have to add shrimp of the same type from different breeders to your aquarium or exchange with other aquarists;
• constant stress, which can even be from a sharp turn on of the light in the aquarium.

See what aquarium shrimp eat in the next video.