7 Best Foods for Freshwater Aquarium Shrimp
It doesn’t matter if you don’t want to breed champion-quality shrimp. Finding the best food for freshwater shrimp is easy. Because ornamental shrimp are so popular, aquarium companies spend a lot to market their products. Dwarf shrimp, which are found in the bottom of the food chain, are scavengers. They consume dead animals, plants, algae, and biofilm stuffed with microorganisms. Their diet is a mixture of protein and vegetable matter. Therefore, it’s important to provide them with a variety to ensure they have sufficient nutrients and minerals. Find out our top 7 favorite foods to feed Caridina and Neocaridina shrimp.
1. Hikari Shrimp Cuisine
Hikari is a long-lived company known for its excellent, delicious fish foods in the aquarium hobby, and their Shrimp Cuisine is no different. These tiny sinking pellets are great for breeding crystal and cherry shrimp because they’re tiny enough to be eaten by both babies and adults. (If you prefer a larger pellet size, Hikari Crab Cuisine is a very similar food for shrimp, snails, crayfish, and crabs.)
Shrimp Cuisine is a complete shrimp diet. It includes vegetable matter such as seaweed and spirulina alga, as well natural color enhancers such as krill. It also provides calcium and other vitamins to promote healthy molting and growth. Beginner shrimp keepers often fear that the copper in shrimp foods can harm their invertebrates, but many shrimp foods such as Shrimp Cuisine contain trace amounts of copper that are necessary for the shrimp to make blood or hemocyanin.
2. Xtreme Shrimpee Sinking Sticks
Although most shrimp foods can be broken down quickly into tiny pieces so that the babies can eat them, excess nutrients in an aquarium can cause cloudiness and other problems. Shrimpee Sinking Sticks may be a better option if you have adult shrimp and aren’t so focused on breeding profit. These 3mm sticks will keep their shape underwater for a long time. This allows shrimp to have plenty of time to eat without food getting stuck to the substrate. This staple shrimp food can be fed every day because it contains quality ingredients, calcium, and high levels of vitamins.
3. Sera Shrimp Natural sinking Granules
In the aquarium hobby, we often try to simulate an aquatic animal’s original environment and diet as closely as possible. Sera has created Sera Shrimps Nature Food which uses natural ingredients and no preservatives. All your shrimp’s favorite ingredients, including spirulina or stingingnettle, alder cones, herbs, and alder cones are included in the sinking granules. You can boost the growth, coloration and breeding of your shrimp colony by using healthy ingredients that won’t pollute your water.
4. Fluval Bug Eats Shrimp Formula
The proteins in shrimp and fish food usually come from fish and crustaceans, but don’t forget that insects are also a naturally occurring part of a shrimp’s diet. Fluval Bug Bites Shrimp Formula includes sustainably processed black soldier fly larvae that are rich in nutrients and fortified with calcium and vitamin D3 to promote strong exoskeletons. For healthy growth and easy digestion, these 0.25-1mm granules contain salmon, green peas and alfalfa.
5. Repashy Gel Food
Shrimp are tiny scavengers and have tiny stomachs so they prefer to graze throughout the day. That’s why Repashy gel food makes it onto our list. You can mix the powder and hot water to make a nutritious gel-like food that will keep for up to 24 hours. The gel food is still soft enough for shrimps to eat. You can even feed the powder directly into the water column for the baby shrimp to eat, since newborns do not swim around a lot and can’t compete with adults during mealtime. Repashy Soilent Green contains a lot of algae and plant material, including spirulina and alfalfa leaves and seaweed. Repashy Community Plus, which is made with krill and alfalfa, seaweed, and squid, is a great omnivore mix. Read this article to learn how easy it is to make gel food.
6. Zoo Med Nano Banquet Food Blocks
Vacation food blocks are usually thought of as a specialty fish food you only feed if you’re going out of town for a while and don’t want to hire a pet sitter. They contain large amounts calcium sulfate and magnesium sulfate to slowly release food into the water without causing it to cloud. This is essential for shrimp molting. Consider adding a Nano Banquet Food Block to your regular meal rotation if your tap water is extremely soft or low in minerals. The blocks are also packed with nutritious plankton and spirulina that your shrimp, snails, and fish will enjoy.
7. Vegetables
Canned and blanched vegetables can be a great way to increase the plant content of your shrimp’s diet. Canned green beans are a favorite of shrimp due to their nutritious content, soft texture and ability to sink quickly. Canned sliced carrots, which contain beta carotene, are another favorite vegetable to feed shrimp. It naturally enhances their red-orange color. You can also try blanching slices of zucchini so that they are soft enough for shrimp to graze on. Be careful not to feed the tank too many vegetables. They will eventually become brittle and could cause water quality problems.
Bonus: Catappa Leaves
These dried botanicals, also known as Indian almond leaves are used in aquariums. They release brown tannins that have mild antifungal and antibiotic properties. They are a favorite of shrimp breeders because they produce a thin layer biofilm from the leaves as they fall. The biofilm is rich in nutritious bacteria, algae, microorganisms, and other microorganisms that baby shrimp can eat throughout the day. One leaf should be added to 20 gallons of water. Once the old leaf begins to develop holes, a new one should be added. You don’t need to remove the old leaf as it will be eaten by your shrimp.
In our experience, most shrimp are not that picky and will eagerly eat any food that you drop into the aquarium. Read our Overview of Freshwater Dwarf Shrimp for more information about how to keep, feed, and breed shrimp.