Shrimp Food

[LadyVictorian]

What should I feed my shrimp until my plants get bigger? I have a male and female ghost shrimp and also a snail who are all alone in a tank for the next two weeks while I run QT and add my betta female. It's a 10 gallon filtered with one java fern at this point (more plants to come, have a baby fern growing right now)

[ChoclateBetta]

Bottom feeder wafers.

[LadyVictorian]

Like you feed to Cory's? Do I need to break them up first or anything or just toss one in for the first two weeks and let them have at it? Also I think my female shrimp is pregers. I see little eggs but no eye dots yet so I have no idea if they are fertilized or not. I threw in some crushed up goldfish flakes and my snail seemed to slurp those up fast, he's soooooooo cute, his little face mmmm. The shrimp didn't seem too into the goldfish flakes though. Not wanting to make my shrimp canables but if i killed them some of my brine shrimp would they eat that? I think my snail would he doesn't seem to picky.

[ChoclateBetta]

They break up. My Cories hate Cory pellets.

[Silverfang]

for shrimp, crush up a bit of flake, algae wafer, anything like that

for ghost shrimp, mine would eat anything, bloodworms they stole from the girls, pellets, any detritus they could find.

[Skyewillow]

Ghost shrimp will eat anything. Ours snagged some of the live blackworms we bought our frogs, slurped them up like spaghetti, it was CREEPY! They will naturally cannibalize, and they'll eat other kinds of shrimp. I throw in microcrab pellets, and spirulina flakes for mine, and they'll wander all over slowly nomming on the flakes. It's cute!

If she's carrying eggs, they're fertile. They won't carry them otherwise. Ghosts hatch into a larval stage which requires specialized feeding and care to grow into a shrimp. While other shrimp will hatch out into "shrimplets". When the female shrimp molts, she puts off "come-hither" pheromones, once the male finds her, he fertilizes HER, and as she lays the eggs, they're fertilized by the sperm deposit. I haven't tried raising the larvae (I never see them once the eggs hatch), but I hear it's tricky.

[ChoclateBetta]

Most breeders breed GS in ponds.

[Skyewillow]

it's easy to replicate wild conditions in ponds. there's sufficient microscopic food for the larvae.

[ChoclateBetta]

Yeah plus here were in the native range.

[bryanacute]

I have 3 ghost shrimp. But I don't know what sex they are!!! >.<