It was a great talk by Zap yesterday. He talked about feeding all sorts of interesting things to shrimp, it had never entered my mind to feed mango to my shrimp. So what all can you feed to your shrimp in terms of fruit and veg, there must be things that are not good for them, I know zap mentioned citrus, and things they universally love. Raw or blanched? I am looking at my refrigerator contents in a whole new light. :)
Never give them arugula, no one likes arugula, and no artichokes either, that isn't really food, it was a joke by the English aristocracy to have that at dinners, and no apples either, I don't like apples. ;)
Mine love what I give the snails - so my shrimp get steamed/frozen/microwaved (not all at once, but any one method breaks up the structure and softens the veggie) kale, zucchini, spinach, bok choy, romaine lettuce and yes, even arugula.
This is supplemented by the odd pellet, microworms and whatever else I feed the tank.
Those seem logical, plants make sense, I feed most of those as well, but what about fruit? I suppose I could share my mango now and again, although I do love mango, and already have to share it, so now we're talking a three way split. I could get cranky. Are there any other fruits that they eat? Do you feed your snails fruit?
My ghost shrimp like to eat fresh cucumber, canned peas & carrots. I see them with little streaks of orange & green when I feed that stuff to the rest of the tank as a treat
I'm not sure if the shrimp would also care for some of the treats I feed my goldie, Mongo, but in addition to peas, lettuce, and other veg, he seems to like watermelon, canteloupe, and kiwi. Never very much, and never left too long in the tank. I don't blanch these -- he tends to suck on them until they are soft enough. I couldn't resist buying a mango at this night's grocery shopping, so I'll give him some to try tomorrow before his waterchange. Mango for Mongo :D
I have a hard time believing I can put acidic fruit in the tank.... but undoubtably Zapisto knows his stuff.
I feed my gang frozen kale and microwaved zuchinni (sp?). The apple snail eats the leaves, the little snails and platys nibble on the stem. The big pleco from Nerine eats the inside of the zuke only, the snails have a go at the rind ;D
I might try some other stuff...
I thought Zapisto said no acidic fruits.
That was my recollection - no oranges or lemons or suchlike.
Quote from: succinctfish on November 27, 2007, 12:45:56 PM
there must be things that are not good for them, I know zap mentioned citrus
must have been the way I phrased it. :)
Yes, citrus was an example of things Zap does not feed shrimp, but as I was in the back of the room by the door during the talk, and it was a wee bit noisy at times there with people coming in late, or talking (you know who you are), I kinda missed most of what was good to feed them. Since there were over 80 people at the presentation, surely one of our 160 or so collective ears caught that part of it? ;D
I don't recall him mentioning many specifics about fruit. He mentioned mango and spearing the goodies on a skewer to keep in in place. He also only leaves it in for a few hours - not overnight.
I have some grapes - I may just try half a one with my cherries and report back.....
The one specific zapisto did mention about fruit was that you should not use anything citrus, he did not have personal proof of this but that it was generally accepted as true by people such as mustafa, an on-line shrimp authority. He was going to experiment with citrus, just not on rarities such as the atya gabonensis as they are not to be killed for the sake of proof.
I threw in a piece of apple just to see, discovered it is an excellent pond snail trap, but that's about it, the snails turned their little rostrums up at it, and would have nothing to do with it. ;D
They were going for the 1/2 grape until I distracted them by tossing some frozen bbs in the tank.