What's the better shrimp foods?

[Cornell333]

Hey guys,

i have quite a few shrimp. And just looking to find out what commercially available foods are the best to use. As it seems a lot of people don't seem to like them all. Also how often are people feeding their shrimp? 

 

Thanks 

[KeenShrimp]

Hi @Cornell333,

There are many ways to skin a cat. I have tasked myself with testing almost any available food out there available for shrimp. The short answer, 'best' is a very liberal term depending on what you are willing to spend on your shrimp. There are also many shrimp foods available such as all in one everyday foods, specialty, and supplemental. The truth is that you do not need any shrimp food at all if you have good biofilm supply as most vitamins, fatty acids and proteins are obtained from bacterial film directly.

It depends on what shrimp you have, and what you are willing to spend. You can have perfectly happy, healthy breeding shrimp in good condition on a generic store brand fish flake. If you want to specifically pay attention to fertility, exoskeletal health, colour etc there is a food out there to match and people have various and strong opinions about what works for them.

My personal opinion is that less is more. The less altered a product is, the more natural ingredient you are putting in your tank: it is more realistic that a dried organic nettle leaf falls into a pond naturally compared to a  Pellet with glucomannan, synthesised vitamins etc.

I find shrimp keeping a very expensive hobby ( I might be doing it wrong!), so I prefer to pay a little extra to have peace of mind that my shrimp have the best odds of not developing deficiencies long term, because that would almost be impossible to identify. And losing shrimp for whatever reason hits you financially as buying new ones is not cheap- even cherries add up. So I try and give them the best odds.

Mosura, Benibachi, Shirakura are the most reputable and well known brands out there. The best quality brand of minimally altered products I have come across is the Dennerle Shrimp King range. In Australia, there is a locally owned brand called Boss Aquaria: the shrimp love the products I have tried ( and still have to review), and are made of natural ingredients that they disclose- I just have an issue with the ingredients that they are not disclosing on the packets ( I understand that it might be a copyright issue)- to be fair, most Asian market shrimp foods also do not disclose ingredients either. There are also pocket-friendly highly processed food like Fluval shrimp granules or Hikari: highly processed, but very nutritious and the manufacturer focuses on 'minimal waste'. As a person with biochemical background, I can confidently say that whichever option you choose, your shrimp will be fine as long as you give them variety and culture your biofilm ( that is a whole separate blog).

Compare shrimp feeding to dog feeding: all brands have one aim: to sell you their brand which they believe has its strong points and merits and is marketed to you that way.

The food review section on the forum has been going since 2012 and plenty of information available on there.

As to how much and how often: everyone has a different opinion as well. I find that feeding whatever they can eat in 3 hours max and then removing the remainder works really well, if you have starvation concerns you can always add shrimp snow as bacteria and fungus grow on the soy bean shells.

Good luck! ?

[OzShrimp]

1 hour ago, KeenShrimp said:

 

I find shrimp keeping a very expensive hobby ( I might be doing it wrong!),

You and me both! I get told by the wife to! Why are all the hobbies i choose expensive lol.

Nice post reply though!

[Cornell333]

6 hours ago, KeenShrimp said:

Hi @Cornell333,

There are many ways to skin a cat. I have tasked myself with testing almost any available food out there available for shrimp. The short answer, 'best' is a very liberal term depending on what you are willing to spend on your shrimp. There are also many shrimp foods available such as all in one everyday foods, specialty, and supplemental. The truth is that you do not need any shrimp food at all if you have good biofilm supply as most vitamins, fatty acids and proteins are obtained from bacterial film directly.

It depends on what shrimp you have, and what you are willing to spend. You can have perfectly happy, healthy breeding shrimp in good condition on a generic store brand fish flake. If you want to specifically pay attention to fertility, exoskeletal health, colour etc there is a food out there to match and people have various and strong opinions about what works for them.

My personal opinion is that less is more. The less altered a product is, the more natural ingredient you are putting in your tank: it is more realistic that a dried organic nettle leaf falls into a pond naturally compared to a  Pellet with glucomannan, synthesised vitamins etc.

I find shrimp keeping a very expensive hobby ( I might be doing it wrong!), so I prefer to pay a little extra to have peace of mind that my shrimp have the best odds of not developing deficiencies long term, because that would almost be impossible to identify. And losing shrimp for whatever reason hits you financially as buying new ones is not cheap- even cherries add up. So I try and give them the best odds.

Mosura, Benibachi, Shirakura are the most reputable and well known brands out there. The best quality brand of minimally altered products I have come across is the Dennerle Shrimp King range. In Australia, there is a locally owned brand called Boss Aquaria: the shrimp love the products I have tried ( and still have to review), and are made of natural ingredients that they disclose- I just have an issue with the ingredients that they are not disclosing on the packets ( I understand that it might be a copyright issue)- to be fair, most Asian market shrimp foods also do not disclose ingredients either. There are also pocket-friendly highly processed food like Fluval shrimp granules or Hikari: highly processed, but very nutritious and the manufacturer focuses on 'minimal waste'. As a person with biochemical background, I can confidently say that whichever option you choose, your shrimp will be fine as long as you give them variety and culture your biofilm ( that is a whole separate blog).

Compare shrimp feeding to dog feeding: all brands have one aim: to sell you their brand which they believe has its strong points and merits and is marketed to you that way.

The food review section on the forum has been going since 2012 and plenty of information available on there.

As to how much and how often: everyone has a different opinion as well. I find that feeding whatever they can eat in 3 hours max and then removing the remainder works really well, if you have starvation concerns you can always add shrimp snow as bacteria and fungus grow on the soy bean shells.

Good luck!

Hey. Thanks so much for putting that much time into your reply. I appreciate it and I use the boss products like. Mineral powder, baby powder, boss booster, mineral balls, shrimp snow and also have the shrimp crack but someone said to me that they don't like the shrimp crack as it is high in calcium or protein one of them and makes it hard for the shrimp to molt.  I think I'll spend some money on some natural food as I like the idea of that anyway. 

And as for doing it wrong because it's expensive I don't think that's the case hahaha. I would be a lot better off if I never started haha but also wouldn't get the joy I get from my tanks. 

 

Thanks again. 

[zn30]

11 hours ago, OzShrimp said:

You and me both! I get told by the wife to! Why are all the hobbies i choose expensive lol.

Nice post reply though!

Ditto!    I use Tropical brand fish food feeding my shrimp Spirulina flakes and recently asked my lfs to get some shrimp sticks, got them today the shrimp jumped on them straight away, all the CRS grabbed a stick and swam off with it. Most aquariums have sample packs for the Tropical brand not all display the samples as they use them in store, however every time I ask if they have samples they produce a couple of sample packs recently I also came across 3-algae in sample packs the shrimp love it.

[ineke]

There is a very extensive list of natural shrimp foods pinned under food and nutrition thread. A lot of people had input into that list .

Over the few years I have kept shrimp I have found there are few shrimp foods my shrimp really  swarm over and I've tried a great variety. I find feeding natural foods like vegetables and leaves seems to satisfy them the most especially blanched mulberry leaves. I leave a leaf in each tank all the time and once a week try to feed a high protein food such as frozen blood worms or now the black worm pellets - thanks to Keenshrimp's great review- I also make a powdered food up of several sorts of commercial shrimp food crushed, crushed dried mulberry leaves, crushed bee pollen, crushed barley pellets, spirulina, barley grass powder, nettle powder plus a packet of boss baby powder just to make sure I have covered all the required nutrition - Jayc has also given a recipe for powdered food in the pinned thread. I feed a small amount of this powder daily especially when shrimplets are present. I use shrimp snow as well but I buy that in bulk as I have a large number of tanks. I do think we probably feed too much processed foods as I have a colony of Neos  outside in a pond that rarely get fed , they live mostly on algae and any leaves that fall in the pond and they are thriving.