I often see the question asked "What is the correct way to feed my dwarf shrimp?", often followed by a debate over whether foods mainly containing plant matter or food containing more content from a 'meat' source are better.  The simple answer is BOTH are important!

Foods containing a high quantity of plant matter are excellent for improving the colour of your shrimp, especially foods containing spirulina and astathaxin (usually also of algal origin).  They usually contain caritinoids which are natural colour enhancers.

Foods containing more 'meat' however are a good source of protein.  High protein diets are good for those wishing to breed their shrimp well, not least because this protein is also needed in the creation of eggs by your female shrimp.

For the majority of hobbyists keeping freshwater dwarf shrimp however we want the best of both worlds!  We want well coloure beautiful looking shrimp that also breed well.  As such we need to feed BOTH types of food.

Now, you could rush out and spend a fortune on one of the fantastic shrimp foods such as that branded Hayashi, which contain a good balanced mix of foods of both plant and meat origin.  However there is another way.  In the same way as we feed our fish a good balanced diet by feeding a variety of foods, you can also feed your shrimp in the same way.

As some of your may have read in the forum, I have been recently running trials of different foods in my shrimp tanks.  By doing so I have developed a feeding regime that seems to work well for my shrimp, using a mixture of a standard granular fish food, frozen foods and a shrimp/crustacean food.  What I have come up with is as follows:-

2 days a week I feed a frozen meaty food, usually either frozen brineshrimp (artemia) or frozen bloodworm.  Not all of my shrimp like bloodworm however, so I chose which to feed accordingly, ie. I only feed artemia in my Project Shrimp snowball and simoni breeding tank, whilst in a tanks with cherry shrimp and/or neocaridina palmata I vary this with bloodworm.  MEAT

1 day a week I feed a granular tropical fish food.  I use Tropical Supervit Granulat which I find to be very good value, and both my fish and my shrimp love it.  You can also try a flake food for this role, although these often take longer to sink.  MIXED

1 day a week I feed an algae pellet (mine was purchased from Snailshop.co.uk).  PLANT

3 days a week I feed a shrimp/crustacean food.  So far I have tried Hikari Crab Cuisine and Tropical Shrimp Sticks.  Both are popular with all of my shrimp, and give good results.  MIXED and contains added ingredients that help with moulting

There is no set order as to how I feed these, all that stay constant is that I try not to feed the same thing too often.  You can also experiment within the food groups to find what your shrimp respond best to.  I also find that I get better result feeding a small quantity of food twice a day, rather than a larger quantity once a day.  This is contrary to traditional thinking, which advises that you feed shrimp one small feed a day.  I tried the traditional method and found that my shrimp bred more slowly and that the young grew slower.  However if you don't particularly need your shrimp to breed and grow quickly then feeding less often does probably increase their lifespan, I found my shrimp lethargic with this method as well though and I also found that my snails got more of the food than my shrimp did when feeding in one go.

May your shrimp grow well, and don't be afraid to experiment with feeding.

Ade