Feeding Schedule for RCS

[Geoff]

I'm looking for a feeding schedule recommendation. I currently have about 20 or so Red Cherry Shrimp and 4 Mystery Snails in a planted 10 gallon tank. I feed them algae wafers, sinking shrimp pellets, and zucchini/summer squash. I believe I am overfeeding as I am experiencing an explosion of bladder snails. 

Given the inhabitants and the foods I listed above, how much and how often should I feed them?

Thanks!

[KeenShrimp]

Ha-Ha @Geoff, this is a brilliant question and I am very interested in what other members reply with. Below is just my two cents worth as I was an over feeder and I have been testing foods for the last 6 months. I have not factored in the mystery snails as someone else will have to chime in on their dietary requirements.

You do not state which pellets you are feeding, but I have tested almost all the pellet foods and they disperse quite easily in the water, are high fish- protein and are very processed and enriched with vitamins that leach into the water almost immediately. The Hikari algae wafer performed poor on stability ( lots of wheat flour) in my shrimp food wafer showdown test that I posted about two months back. If the food disperses in your water current, all the snails basically get a 'takeaway meal' as the fine food particles comes to them as it settles on surfaces and substrate.

The food you want is a natural, minimally-processed, plant-based shrimp food pad like EbitaBreed or Shrirakura or any good brand that is stable. The natural vitamins and minerals are bound to organic molecules and do not disperse in the water easily. I strongly believe if you just change this part to start off with, your snail breeding will slow down. I have managed to stop my bladder and mini-rams horns plagues with the above.

Zucchini is popular, but it is more water-fouling than for example blanched Mullberry leaves, spinach leaves or mixed salad leaves. Zucchini also has much less nutritional value compared to leaves. These can stay in the tank until they are devoured. @ineke will be able to exactly tell you how she manages to feed these and have extremely high breeding rates.

The various manufacturers advise 15-30 shrimp per shrimp food pad, depending on what you buy. This recommendation is for tanks that have higher shrimp populations than what you stock: you will have lots of biofilm with so few shrimp, but then again you might not have much depending on how much the mystery snails eat- I suspect they might be your highest consumers.

At @Disciple's recommendation to incorporate a starve day, worked for me too: so well in fact that I now have two starve days a week ( not consecutively) as there is an accumulation of zooplankton the next day where the food was left. I have to mention that I have moved to a pro-biotic based feeding model together with shrimp food, under guidance of another breeder, so I am also not sure what planktonic populations you might have in your tank with your current feeding method.

I would highly recommend doing a test as each person's tanks is so different. Why not drop a food pad in that you have broken up so that the snails don't hog it all, and then remove the food after 3-4 hours?

I have made many changes to my tanks in the last few months, and feeding was just a small part of it, but my shrimplet survival is much higher now and I can confirm that by underfeeding, my shrimplets are doing better than ever.

Good luck, and I am looking forward to see the other shrimpers responses as feeding is such an interesting topic?

[Geoff]

Thank you for the response @KeenShrimp! The snails eat the pellets, wafers, and zucchini/squash as well. The pellets are Omega One shrimp pellets. The first 11 ingredients are fish/seafood, followed by wheat flour, kelp, and spirulina. This leads me to believe that the amount of flour in the pellets is relatively low. The algae wafers are also Omega One. The first 7 ingredients are kelp, spirulina, and 5 kinds of fish/seafood, then followed by wheat flour. These, too, appear to be more veggie/fish than flour. I've heard good things on other forums about these foods/brands, so I'm confident they're high quality. And between them and the fresh veggies, I feel I am offering them a good variety. 

Here is a picture of a pellet, wafer, and their containers, along with a quarter for size comparison. The pellets are pretty large when compared to other pellet foods, such as New Life Spectrum.

I've been dropping in 2-3 wafers and 5-7 pellets every other day (M, W, F). Then on Sundays, I put in a zucchini/squash for a day and a half. So I have 3 starve days, none consecutively. There is constant feeding on the pellets, wafers, and zucchini/squash the whole time they're in there, but they don't finish them up very quickly. It probably took them 18 hours to finally finish up the wafers and pellets that I put in yesterday (Monday). I read somewhere today that you should put in as much food that they will eat in an hour. Well, if that's true, then I am terribly overfeeding. But that is why I'm here asking you fine folks. Also, when I do my weekly water testing and changes, the nitrates are always up to 40. This also leads me to believe I am overfeeding. I can easily cut down, but I don't want to starve the shrimp.

PS - I'm not familiar with food pads.

Edited July 6, 2016 by Geoff

[KeenShrimp]

Hi @Geoff,

How large is your tank? I believe that 40ppm Nitrates are way to high to even keep fish in. The average consensus is that shrimp should not be in a habitat with nitrates higher than 20ppm. You might have answered your own question on the overfeeding part. Even with starve days, you are still feeding too much in one meal. 2-3 wafers and 5-7 sticks are way too much. 4 large mystery snails sharing one wafer is already overfeeding for a day. One of the shrimp pellets in the above is enough for 4 adult shrimp at the very least.

I would like to clarify on the food: the term High Quality is used very liberally. You have to separate Nutritional Balance from Water stability. Food can be expensive and still be polluting. Fish proteins/ meals are water fouling and gluten/ wheat is a cheap filler that makes the food easier to form into a shape and stick together. You mention the first 7 ingredients are sea/fish ingredients- proteins are polluting and you need higher veggie. Algae wafers contain very little algae when you look at the analysis. The above food you mentioned is classified as a highly processed food. Minimally processed shrimp food contains plant/leaf parts as the most abundant ingredients- if you Google EbitaBreed Quattro II or Shrimp King or EbitaBreed you can peruse the ingredient lists. Nutritionally, there is nothing wrong with the food you are using ( shrimp can scavenge off anything) it is just more polluting and less stable than foods with more plant ingredients that do not have fillers. I am recommending the food pads as it will solve your snail issue by staying stable, not dissolving no fouling the water and you can remove the food after a few hours. 

I hope some very experienced shrimpers will give you insight to assist. Chronic overfeeding and high nitrates will weaken the shrimp immune system, cause stress and eventual bacterial imbalance leading to possible disease outbreak.

 

 

 

 

 

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[albash]

@Geoff i was in your position before always think shrimps get hungry easily. Personally i think its way overfed based on amount food you have mentioned.

I feed them from shirakura, bacter ae, baby powdered food, glasgurten (hopefully i spell it correctly), barley pallet n bloodworms. I usually allocate a "starve day" after feed them bloodworm. My schedule is fothnightly and 2 strve days each week. I also change water fothnightly instead weekly - im too lazy.