What do you feed a shrimp?

What to feed ghost shrimp?

• I am going to have ghost shrimp in a tank of their own, and I'm wondering what to feed them, as most places say they will eat left over fish food(there really shouldn't be any, either way...). Hikari sinking/algae wafers?

• Answer:

  When I was researching for a shrimp only tank, I was frustrated to find no websites that listed their actual diet, so I can give you a thorough list of everything my ghost shrimp have accepted as food, as they generally ignored flakes or pellets and some of the foods I tried using in the beginning. :) You don't have to feed them ALL of this, obviously, but this is just a list you can pick and chose from and I'm only listing so much, so you can chose what is easiest and cheapest for you to buy. First, I've tried several different feeding schedule and the one that seems to keep the tank cleanest while still making sure they survive is feeding them at night before I go to bed and vacuuming up any leftovers in the morning, since ghost shrimp are slow eaters. Frozen, shelled, microwaved peas Leaves of Anacharis plant (lol) boiled fresh carrots, but mushed up Boiled egg yolk (Be careful, this can pollute the tank if you feed too much. I never mushed it up, just fed in clumps, so it was easy to vacuum up) Dead ghost shrimp (lol) Shrimp pellets, the sinking ones Frozen bloodworms (A huge favorite) Frozen brine shrimp (Another favorite) Frozen Krill Frozen daphnia (Only the babies and smaller ones seem to like this though) Frozen tubifex worms Frozen Brocolli--I microwaved it for a minute first and just put in the whole flower and they ate what they want and I took it out the next morning. They seem to primarily just eat the flower buds, though Fresh cucumber--I sliced it, peeled it, and left it in water all day to soften, and fed it to them at night. Two of my ghost shrimp immediately went for it and stay eating on it for awhile, so I'm assuming they like it, but because of their tiny stomachs, they ate barely enough to put a hole in it, so maybe feed cucumber cubes instead? If you want, your call Cauliflower-Frozen and microwaved, served the same way as the broccoli Algae Pellets--but very little, because they don't seem to eat much algae. I usually break up my pellets and sprinkle a little for my shrimp. They never ate any of the freeze-dried foods I tried, but I'm guessing that's because they float and while ghost shrimp can get to the surface, they prefer their food on the floor. ;) Good luck. I experimented with many different foods, just to see what their bodies looked like. But be careful not to overfeed. When you feed them at night, just sprinkle a little bit of food around the tank, because if you place it in one area, the bigger shrimp will eat and prevent the smaller ones from getting to it, in my experience. Just to give you an idea of how much to feed, when I feed bloodworms, I have a 10 gallon long tank with 12 ghost shrimp. I spread out 12 bloodworms around the tank, because they only eat one. For peas, I feed 1 mushed pea per 2 ghost shrimp. Their stomachs are small. ;)