Shrimp "grazing"

[TonyAPBTx]

Hello,

First post here, hello everyone.

I have a question. I have never kept shrimp before (my background is in Discus) and acquired a dozen Crystal Reds of good quality. So I'm wanting to make sure I'm doing everything right.

As a little background all of the shrimp are healthy and I've had a good amount of molting. I have had them for a little over 3 weeks. I am feeding flake food (prime reef and tetra crips), pellet (tetra colorbits), artisan shrimp crumble and finally some blanched spinach. The tank is developing a pretty good film of algae which the shrimp seem to be feeding on most of the time and very well. They are in a 10 gallon with driftwood, moss and java fern.

On to the question finally... when i add food to the tank (once a day usually) the shrimp don't get overly excited or go towards the food. When they are grazing they will stop, eat a little and graze on and don't seem to focus too much on the food I have added. I just added a blanched spinach leaf and I've had two shrimp just casually graze over it, stop and eat for a minute and then move on. In a lot of the videos I've seen when there is food in the tank the shrimp seem to be paying more attention or even in some cases fighting over the food.

Are there too many food options for them? Are they just not hungry and I am overfeeding? Or is this indicative of a bigger problem?

Thanks in advance.

[MananaP]

Hello,

First post here, hello everyone.

I have a question. I have never kept shrimp before (my background is in Discus) and acquired a dozen Crystal Reds of good quality. So I'm wanting to make sure I'm doing everything right.

As a little background all of the shrimp are healthy and I've had a good amount of molting. I have had them for a little over 3 weeks. I am feeding flake food (prime reef and tetra crips), pellet (tetra colorbits), artisan shrimp crumble and finally some blanched spinach. The tank is developing a pretty good film of algae which the shrimp seem to be feeding on most of the time and very well. They are in a 10 gallon with driftwood, moss and java fern.

On to the question finally... when i add food to the tank (once a day usually) the shrimp don't get overly excited or go towards the food. When they are grazing they will stop, eat a little and graze on and don't seem to focus too much on the food I have added. I just added a blanched spinach leaf and I've had two shrimp just casually graze over it, stop and eat for a minute and then move on. In a lot of the videos I've seen when there is food in the tank the shrimp seem to be paying more attention or even in some cases fighting over the food.

Are there too many food options for them? Are they just not hungry and I am overfeeding? Or is this indicative of a bigger problem?

Thanks in advance.

Hi and welcome, you came to the right forum.

Yes, you are right about them having too many options and they usually like grazing on the soil/algae/moss etc most of the time rather than eating shrimp food that you give them. Try not feeding them for a few days or even a week. This is the same case in my 10 gallon tank with only few shrimps.