Alternative Food Dishes for Shrimp

[travellife]

I've been on a quest for a tiny food dish or bowl that will fit in my jarrarium. There isn't a lot of open space on the substrate and my shrimp are very small. Has anyone used ceramic products? I found a lady that makes very attractive, organic designed dishes. They are non-toxic, food safe, high-fired and glazed white stoneware.

 

travellife

 

 

[jayc]

Ceramics should work fine. .

[anthonyd]

Feeding dishes are a waste of money in my opinion. As soon as the shrimp colony reach a certain size the shrimp fight over the food and it ends up out of the dish after 30 seconds.

[travellife]

Feeding dishes are a waste of money in my opinion. As soon as the shrimp colony reach a certain size the shrimp fight over the food and it ends up out of the dish after 30 seconds.

Gotcha, have seen them in action when its a large group, it's a feeding frenzy. This is for a small group though, bout 16 juvenile neos, in a totally natural vase. I have to control the environment as much as possible and would like to be able to feed them food that may be messier than what I've been using.

https://goo.gl/photos/45C4ZB4nDbunWsi46



travellife

Ceramics should work fine. .

That's what I'm thinking too. I notice there are ceramic products being sold online at specialty shrimp stores. I wouldn't expect any leaching of material, supposed to be microwaveable/dishwasher safe. She's even offered to glaze the bottoms of the dishes for me.

travellife

[jayc]

4 hours ago, travellife said:

glaze the bottoms of the dishes

That's a good idea. definitely glaze the bottom too . 

[Callan]

Ceramics/Terracotta acts as an absorbent for a certain time before it will no longer absorb which is why I used it as hides and even used terracotta balls in all my shrimp tanks. Inexpensive and easy to replace. I agree to an extent with Anthony that dishes are a bit of a waste because of the shrimp dragging food of it when fighting for it, but if you were using a food type that broke down to a powder form then is could fall into the cracks/crevices depending on the substrate and become trapped which over time could build up to a level that could possibly cause an ammonia spike. Similar to what happens more predominately in small ponds or fish tanks particularly caused by over feeding, poor filtration, waste etc.

JayC  mentioned using a glazed ceramic which makes sense if going that way, easier to clean rather than a plain terracotta but be careful of the choice in the color of the glaze because colors such as blue have very high levels of iron (from memory google it anyway) which could cause issues and kill your shrimp, I recall with certain water bowls there were certain colors that we could not recommend to customers to use to keep livestock in. I am fairly certain blue was one but cant recall the other colors.

[travellife]

Thank you Callan.  I've been hesitant to go with the glazed ceramic dish, something in the back of my mind was bothering me about going that route.  These do have blue coloration and I don't want to take any chances.  This is my first stint with raising shrimp and I've come to realize they're much more sensitive than fish.  Looks like I'm back to finding a tiny glass dish.  Or using the tiny terracotta saucers that are sold for miniature flower pots.  I'll have to look up the terracotta balls you mentioned, I've only seen the tourmaline mineral type.