Starving Shrimp

[Bedfordshire]

I am on holiday and someone is looking after my shrimp, however I was sent pics of my tanks and they show a big algae problem including lots of white fungus on uneaten bits of food. I conclude that the algae explosion is from overfeeding over past 3 weeks. (completely my fault as I over calculated)

I've got 2 weeks to go and wanted to know if drastically reducing feeding to only Bioplus every second day was too drastic. Will the shrimps be ok on this diet over next two weeks?

Any help would be greatly appreciated

[Lexinverts]

I am on holiday and someone is looking after my shrimp, however I was sent pics of my tanks and they show a big algae problem including lots of white fungus on uneaten bits of food. I conclude that the algae explosion is from overfeeding over past 3 weeks. (completely my fault as I over calculated)

I've got 2 weeks to go and wanted to know if drastically reducing feeding to only Bioplus every second day was too drastic. Will the shrimps be ok on this diet over next two weeks?

Any help would be greatly appreciated

I had a similar thing happen to me while I was on vacation last month and I lost a whole tank of F1 White Orchids. :-( My "shrimp-sitter" didn't top off my tanks with RO water, so the tank volume decreased dramatically in my 10 gallon Sulawesi tanks, increasing the GH substantially and magnifying the increase in nitrates because of lack of water changes.

The increase in algae you are seeing may be a result of nitrates building up in the tank. I would have your shrimp-sitter stop feeding your shrimp, and do a water change if possible. If there is lots of algae, there will be plenty of biofilm for most shrimps to feed on. I also would have the shrimp-sitter top off the tanks with distilled or RO water if the water volume is low. Good luck!

[imke_j]

I have left my shrimp alone for 14 days without any sitter or care. Overfeeding even is worse than no feeding. Before I left, I added leaves to my tank, what was a good day-by-day food source.

Coming back to your tank: If you have dried thin leaves at home, like stinging nettle or walnut, tell your sitter to put them in. Dosage depends on tank size and stock; I am sorry I cannot advise you. Good luck!

[Bedfordshire]

Ty lexinverts & imke, my shrimp sitter is top notch & has been topping off (with remineralised RO) 6 tanks with expert precision & removing algae etc... They even lowered the light time from 8 to 6 hours to combat algae. However I think a water change will be too much to ask.

I do have a big Catappa leaf in each tank so shoul be fine then.

Feeding changed to 1/2 spoon of Bioplus for each 60L tank, so that shouldnt be too much.

I'll just have to wait till I'm back to do anything further: adding ottos, water change new lower feeding regime too.

[retardo]

In a mature tank, there should be enough micro-algaes growing off the surfaces and on plants to supply food for your shrimp, unless you have a ton of shrimp to feed. I'd reduce feeding to 2-3x a week. There is no need to feed more often than that.

[Rob]

i agree with that!

[Fento]

I agree with Imke, if you are worried about feeding, the best thing you can do is adding some dry leaves before leaving. But be carefull choosing the 'right' ones, because if you just add soft leaves (like nettle, tylus... or very boiled ones) they'll be eaten soon. Harder leaves like cattapa, oak, walnut... will last longer, anyway there's no need to add too much leafs. I've seen in my tanks that an excess of leaves might use to raise planaria and copepods number or even raise some water parameters.

The only thing you should worry a bit is about watter changing and it's parameters.

It's funny, but sometimes I think my shrimps do better without having me arround