# filter feeding shrimp?



## j-man the skater-man

would a filter feeding shrimp be alright in my 10 gallon cherry shrimp breeding tank?


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## garfieldnfish

No, but only because of the tank size. They recommend 20 gal per filter feeder, because they may not be able to filter enough food in anything smaller. I kept 2 in a 20 gal for over 1 year together but I added fry food and pytoplex to increase the food supply. Other then that, those shrimp would make a good match. Won't interbreed and the filter feeder cannot harm baby shrimp.


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## micstarz

I have a 2" filter shrimp doing well in a 10gal I would say it is al right, I just cant be sure if the amount of water can hold enough plankton for its feeding purposes tho. I add liquid fry food to my 10gal for my fry and shrimp.


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## cheseboy

micstarz said:


> I have a 2" filter shrimp doing well in a 10gal I would say it is al right, I just cant be sure if the amount of water can hold enough plankton for its feeding purposes tho. I add liquid fry food to my 10gal for my fry and shrimp.


SHrimp don't eat fry food :| . If it's been alive for a while now it's probably getting food from somewhere else.

For feeding it can be given very small flake food or crushed/powderized food. But a really good food is suspended algae (green water) they love the stuff. Depending of your light, the size of your shrimp and the nitrates in the aquarium, suspended algae will probably not grow as fast as your shrimp consumes it. Tank specs? To the best of my knowledge phytoplankton is pretty much green water. Now you can make your own green water. Or you can buy bottled phytoplankton at your local fish store in the marine section. Another good thing isO.S.I Micro-food. Take a look!



> O.S.I. Micro-food is a specially formulated diet for baby fish and marine reef invertebrates. It is also useful for feeding filter-feeding shrimp such as vampire and bamboo shrimp. In the wild, these shrimp feed on natural plankton. O.S.I. Micro-food is an artificial plankton with a 100-micron particle size. The high fat content provides energy-rich food particles to promote growth in baby fish and support the slow feeding habits of reef invertebrates.
> 
> *Feeding Instructions*: One scoop of Micro-food should be mixed with some of your tank water to suspend the particles. Turn your filter off so that the particles are not filtered out. Pour the particles into your tank and allow about 30 minutes feeding time before turning your filter back on. Do not overfeed. It is a good idea to keep unused Micro-food in your fridge or freezer.


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## garfieldnfish

Cheseboy, they do eat fry food and small flake food and they pick up food on the gravel floor if there is not enough suspended in the water. Fry food will serve them just fine. That is why many people keep them in fry tanks to eat the excess food. But I do agree that there is food in the marine section of the pet stores that would serve them well. Anything labled for marine invertebrates would do.


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## j-man the skater-man

the tank is a 10 gallon with a sponge filter, and stock lighting which is about 1.5 wats per gallon

the water parameters are pH 7 (i know its a little low for inverts but they seem ok) 
KH 80ish GH 75 nitrite 0 nitrate 10

the tank also has a good bit of plant hornwort covers almost half the tank if that matters any...

also i know that the filter feeding shrimp wont hurt the cherry babies but will the baby cherry shrimp benifit from addin green water,fry food, or the marine invert food???


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## garfieldnfish

Odds are whatever you plan on feeding the baby cherry shrimp will keep the filter shrimp alive. I am only concerned if you have no baby shrimp in your tank and you do not feed fry food if there is enough for the filter shrimp to eat in a 10 gal. But if you keep feeding them fry food and liquid food they should be ok. The baby cherry will probably benefit from pytoplex as well. But a better food source is a boiled lettuce leave put in a glass jar and set in from of a window for a few days. Plenty to eat for both the cherry babies and the filter shrimp.


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## j-man the skater-man

ok what do u mean liquid food? another question will the filter feeder shrimp or cherry shrimp eat baby brine shrimp?


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## garfieldnfish

Pytoplex look like green soup, liquid food is green water (infusoria, the lettuce mixture will give that to you). There is also Liquifry fry food, but that is made mostly of egg yolk and I would avoid that for the shrimp (Can't tell you why, just a gut feeling that that would be wrong). 
Almost anything small in an aquarium will eat baby brine shrimp and I'm sure that filter shrimp and baby cherrys are no exception, but baby brine shrimp have very little nutritional value. If you decide to hatch them yourself, you should gut load them with spiritulina flakes before feeding those brine shrimp to your guys. 
A lot of hassle. I raised them to adult hood in a 2.5 gal salt water set up. And then I felt sorry for them and was unable to feed them to anything. They ended up dying of old age after 3 months. I would never do that again. But if you want the instructions to successfully raise brine shrimp I can help. Lol.


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## j-man the skater-man

ok thanks and i dont think i will do the brine shrimp thing


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## Damon

I think some of us are getting our channels crossed........... I say this because this is posted in freshwater and I don't know of many shrimp that fall in this category.
What filter feeder are you talking about?


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## cheseboy

There are pretty much only 2 kinds of freshwater filter feeding shrimp in the hobby. 

There is the Bamboo Shrimp this shrimp gets 3-4.5 inches.









Then there is the Vampire Shrimp this shrimp gets huge over 6in!









The more commonly found shrimp in pet stores is the Bamboo shrimp. I have never seen a Vampire Shrimp in stores and rarley see it online. If the Vampire Shrimp is for sale you can find it here. This is the ultimate site for buying shrimp. They don't have the vampire shrimp in stock now but they had it not too long ago. Therefore I beleve he has a bamboo shrimp. But only he can tell us what he has! :king: .


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## j-man the skater-man

im am talking about the bamboo shrimp....sry i wasnt clear on that but i didnt know the name of the shrimp.....petstore had the bamboo shrimp labeled as a blue crayfish...


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## j-man the skater-man

ok umm the baby CRS are doing great and for the first week or 2 i never saw them touch flake food so im assumeing they are eating phytoplankton or suspended algea. i have seen them nibbling/eating hair algea...i think they are eating it anyway. ok is "green water" really green??? ive had the lettuce sitting in water for days now and the water looks like watered down milk...its still infusoria right?


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## MYGOBYRULES

I have a vampire shrimp in my planted 75 community and it is doing fine(looks exactaly like the one in the pic.) To be honest I am not relly sure what it eats, but when it is fanning I can see tiny bits of somthing on them. But i feed enough fish that there is enough leftover bits in the water. Guess that is what he is eating.


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## j-man the skater-man

ok stupid question but can inverts like shrimp carry illnesses that they can pass to other animals?


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## cheseboy

j-man the skater-man said:


> ok stupid question but can inverts like shrimp carry illnesses that they can pass to other animals?


No, they can not be infected by many illnesses (or atleast thoes that would infect fish). What disease are you afraid of? The only thing I can remember for him about diseases is if you have a free folating disease such as ich in the swimming phase there is a very small chance that when you remove him some organisms will get trapped on his body. It is a small chance though. But just make sure if you are going to treat for any illnesses to remove the shrimp because medications can damage him.


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## j-man the skater-man

no i was just wondering if there are any illnesses that can affect other animals in the tank that are related to shrimp thanks

ok how do you feed the bamboo shrimp green water or infusoria??
how do you culture green water? how do you culture infusoria??


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## garfieldnfish

You boil a lettuce leaf and put it in a jar of tank water. Set it in front of a window for a couple of days and you have infusoria. Or you buy phytoplex in the marine section they eat that too. They also eat left over fish flakes since they can use their front modified "claws" or filters, to pick up minute items. So they can eat crushed flakes and flake particles (small pieces that come from fish eating larger pieces) and hence clear up the tank. Great for fry tanks since fry food is the easiest way to feed them.
BTW it was posted in the right section since he asked if he could keep them with cherry shrimp, those are obviously fresh water.


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