Today, I will be revising my shrimp feeding methods. There are many different ways you can feed your pet shrimp. This guide is for freshwater aquarium shrimp such as neocaridina and caridina shrimp, and not necessarily for filter feeding shrimp like bamboo shrimp. Those are easy, you just feed them Pure Nordic Nutridust or Nutrigreens, and make sure they have enough flow to catch the particles.
You can make your feeding regimen as simple or as involved as you would like. I would suggest starting with an easy method, and slowly add to it as you learn what your shrimp need. You basically want to start with a good comprehensive food, such as Pure Nordic Daybyday or Hwa comprehensive. Starting with a comprehensive food like that will assure your group is getting all the essential vitamins and minerals to grow and breed, which makes it much easier to start adding in supplemental foods like Pure Nordic Mineral.
Getting your feeding size dialed in for your group is a little bit of a learning experience, as every group of shrimp can be different. I have had new groups take to food very quickly, while others have needed a little coercing. Best way to go about this is to put a small pellet in there (as small as you can find) and see how long it takes your group to consume it. If your group doesn't touch it after an hour, take it out and give them a day or two off and try again. If they do eat the small pellet in 30 mins, add a little more. Basically what you want to do is find the size of pellet for your group to consume in 1 hour.
Once you have figured out the feeding amount and your group is growing, you can add in supplemental foods here and there. I would begin with a protein rich food to aid in egg production, something like Pure Nordic Aminostix. I replace 1-2 feedings per week with a protein rich food like this.
When you notice your shrimp beginning to grow their saddles (pre fertilized eggs) you can start using SMALL amounts of powder foods like Pure Nordic Nutridust or Nutrigreens to signal to your shrimp there is food available to newborns. This can help get them breeding, as it is sort of a reassurance that the young shrimp will thrive. I wouldn't do this more than once a week if you do not have babies in the tank yet. Once you start seeing babies, its best to up the powder feedings to twice a week. Don't be afraid to feed your shrimp twice a day, if you feed a little less each time. This will give you the ability to feed more types of food, so they can get a more varied diet. The more varied their diet is, typically, the healthier the shrimp are.
So congrats, you have babies now! Now we can up the feedings and variety even more! While still mainly feeding a comprehensive food, in conjunction with protein rich food and powder food, I like to add in a supplement such as Pure Nordic Mineral, Pro Probiotic, or Green Herb. These I do once or twice a week, and rotate them. You still want to mainly feed the comprehensive, protein, and dust. As your babies grow, you will be feeding larger pellets, and more often. I try to keep up the powder feedings to at least twice a week until I start seeing babies jump on pellets, however, if you still have new born babies that aren't jumping on pellets, you still want to keep up the powders. Baby shrimp don't really move too much for the first couple days of their life, so if there is any way you can get small bits of food to come to them, you will have much higher baby survival.
Your schedule is really for you to figure out what works for you. This is how I base my feeding, but each tank is different and some tanks end up needing more (or less) food. Some tanks don't like certain foods, also. What works for one tank doesn't necessarily work for all tanks, so its really hard to just say "Feed your shrimp this exact way and you will have great results". Learning what your shrimp like and what they need is all part of the shrimp keeping experience. In my experience, shrimp can be a LOT pickier than fish are. This isn't always the case, and most of the time when you have a large colony, they will eat a shoe if you put it in there.
