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live foods are always better me thinks!!! BUT if you can't get any live worms then the freeze dried work well -I resorted to these to feed my fry after 3 weeks I think - I only recommended the black worm farm because it's australian and the freeze dried cubes definitely don't seem to have anything else in them. my fish ate them everytime offered but when I used the other types of dried worms like red worms or tubifex they weren't as interested. That's been my experience but I'm not an expert so read as much as you can and remember as with shrimp what works really well for 1 breeder might not work for another. I was a complete beginner as far as breeding Bettas is concerned and had enormous success but I was flying blind so to speak and maybe it was just beginners luck. I didn't try again and the next time might have been completely different. Just have fun and enjoy what you are doing. If what you are doing works then great if not try again -it's a hobby to enjoy and any success if great but it's all a big learning curve. I would absolutely love to do it again but I know my limitations . Even looking after 3 tanks takes a toll on me and water change day means carrying 8 buckets of water plus leaning over to clean the glass etc and the next day I'm like an old granny walking around- but wait I am an old granny LOL - I'm extremely sore and have to take it easy. Hubby has offered to do it for me but it's my hobby so I want to do it. Typical stubborn old woman me!!!!

I remember you saying this Simon! In my research recently, I found that it’s possible for females to actually change their sex to become male! That may have been what you experienced. It’s really quite fascinating. I’ll make sure to read jayc’s betta advice again over the weekend in case I forgot anything. Glad to hear yours is still doing well! With the shrimp I’m being a little optimistic, but the shrimp is a tough bugger, and the tank has many spaces where he can hide and the betta won’t be able to touch him (thank goodness for cholla wood ?). Hopefully it won’t come to that. Oh I thought you could only use live foods for conditioning. I’ve got a few stores nearby that stock freeze-dried black worms, I might give it a go. If the bettas don’t like it, I’m sure my other fish will. Might be a good prompt to get one of those feeder cups too, they seem pretty handy. So… I took too long to order them and they both sold ? Going to get a similar male from the same place, but I think I’ll get a female from a local breeder instead, as the online place doesn’t have any other females I really like. Hopefully I can get some extra tips from the breeder. Anyways, once I get them I’ll start my own topic. Thanks to both of you for your help.

I have gone through the thread and bolded and enlarged the products so that it is easier to read/follow/find etc. I haven't touched anything else! Simon

This is the article I was looking for so just bumping it up for new people to see ?

So today I’ve been making my own shrimp food. I already make powdered food for my babies which seems to have worked well over these years of breeding. Today I dehydrated some leaves - mulberry, thistles and celery- all these years of keeping shrimp and I didn’t know they like celery leaves I tried some blanched celery leaves and all 3 tanks went straight to it. I’ve used a bit of whatever shrimp foods I have , plus the ground leaves and powdered baby food, mixed it with agar agar and have the resultant mix in the dehydrator now. I’m fed up with buying over priced shrimp food that rarely gets eaten so hopefully they will like my little experiment, if not I will have a lot of dry shrimp food sitting around. My shrimp seem to prefer freshly cut mulberry leaves that I “cook” until soft in the microwave over everything else. I’ve tried all sorts of food , different leaves as in spinach, nettles, nasturtium and veggies like cucumbers and zucchini. They like cucumbers but throw in a mulberry leaf and that’s them happy. I’ve bought many different types of shrimp food- benibachi, azoo, denerle etc but they generally don’t bother with it. I probably feed way too much so they are fussy with what they eat but I’m getting much better with the amounts so they might eventually get hungry. I also tried making some shrimp lollipops but on small branches from my mulberry trees because I didn’t have any bamboo skewers. It seems to be working but I had to put the food on thicker than I would like otherwise it wouldn’t stick to the little branch. I won’t know until tomorrow if it works but worth trying. Will let you know how t all goes tomorrow. I have spent quite some time looking for an article that a group of us here had put together around 2013 about all the different leaves we feed but I gave up as I kept getting sidetracked reading old posts . I found one that was pinned in food and nutrition about different dry foods people had tried but still can’t find the one about leaves. If anyone can find it can you let me know please. I think it was quite informative and interesting but then we didn’t have all the information that is available now back then. Well that’s enough rambling from me today ?.

Oh good, glad you found it, I was just looking for leaves but this thread covers other stuff as well! I will read through the thread! I saw this in my seachng for leaves, https://skfaquatics.com/forum/forums/topic/12804-fruit-tree-leaves-test/ Simon

Thanks Simon. I was looking for the article to bring it up for the current members to discuss. I’m pretty well informed about leaves and probably tried quite a lot of them. I grow mulberry trees in pots and have fresh leaves all year so don’t bother drying them. I’ve given my shrimp mulberry leaves that were dried , frozen and lightly blanched the outcome is the softer the leaves the quicker they eat them. I actually cook them in water in the microwave for 8 minutes which is a lot longer than most people tell you to do. I’ve found this the most accepted form of leaves and that was trying different times in my 13 tanks back when I had my shrimp room. Now I just pick fresh leaves every few days and cook for the 8 minutes within a couple of days all I have left are the veins. I use the freshly picked leaves and have never had an issue with the sap- probably because I cook them so long. My shrimp aren’t particularly interested in other leaves- spinach, lettuce, oak , kale - although today I tried celery leaves and they actually jumped on them pretty quickly even though they had mulberry leaves in the tank. I will try to find the article again but if you are looking you need to go back to 2013 or 2014 that’s when we were very active and did lots of trials of food. I thought if I could find the article it might be good to help start a discussion .?

This was exactly what I experieced with my first betta and a couple of shrimps, red cherry, in a 8L tank! My current betta is fine with shrimp, but I put tat more down to the fact they are much harder to see being culls, they are brown or clear, and the tank is bigger 25L with a lot of plants etc! Again this was my first experience. Second and third didn't do much better (no pun). The last and current have been plain saiing thanks to JayC assistance which is on here under Betta subject! Good luck with the breeding Crabby, I think I have said before, I bought 3 female (?) betta from a closing store but one must have been male as I ended up with about 50 babies (I did think the fish were quite aggressive but dismissed it, should have been a clue????) - it came to nothing as I am housebound so couldn't deal with it in time, the only good part about it was it made me adament I don't want to breed them ever again.................. I plan to go through this whole thread later, haven't yet, got to do some housewor first, d'oh! Still, something to look forward to later. Simon

When I closed my shrimp room I gave away most of my shrimp apart from a few old ones that I felt it was unfair to move on both for the receivers and for the shrimp themselves and my outdoor shrimp . I kept a 60 litre tank for the shrimp and changed my big tank over to a fish tank. Hubby likes looking at fish so I kept them for a year or so but we both missed the shrimp. So I can understand what you are saying. I eventually gave away the fish and grabbed the best shrimp from the pond plus what I had left in the 60 litre tank and started over. I also bought and was given some very nice “culls” from Marcus. That’s what I’m playing with now. I’m looking forward to seeing what I end up with once they start breeding. My last giant gene female is berried at the moment, she is a very pale red , hopefully she lasts long enough to hatch her eggs . She would be close to 2 now so won’t be around much longer. She probably mated with one of the black boys but is now in the red tank. If she does carry the eggs to term - another week or so - it will be interesting plus I get a few more of the larger shrimp. If she dies before the eggs hatch I will try to rescue them. If I see her tomorrow I will get a picture of her with another shrimp for comparison to show the size difference. If she wasn’t berried I would catch her out but I don’t want to chase her around.