Spinach as food

I have been growing spinach in my garden for the entire winter here in Central Florida and now that I am about tired of eating it I have started to feed it to my shrimp. I just blanch it and throw it in the aquariums and the shrimp LOVE it!

The good news is the spinach is also VERY good for the shrimp! It has a lot of vitamins and minerals that are easily taken up by the shrimp, including calcium!

Are you feeding your shrimp anything fresh from the garden?

What’s new at TheShrimpFarm.com

It has been a while since I posted an update here on The Shrimp Farm Blog so I figured it was time!

So what is new?

• I have spent the last 3 weeks in Haiti.
• Before Haiti I was on the road for ABC News for 2 weeks.
• Amano Shrimp have been breeding consistently
• Cherry and Yellow Shrimp breeding has slowed from lack of attention

I will try harder to keep the site updated now that I am home again!

Red Cherry Shrimp in Acidic Water

For the last few months I have had some Red Cherry Shrimp in an aquarium that was intended for Crystal Red Shrimp. I set it up with Aqua Soil Amazonia and quite a few plants and mosses. I keep the pH right around 6.0 and have some interesting observations for the Red Cherries!

Observations:
- The Red Cherry Shrimp grow slower
- Far less breeding activity observed
- Berried females have become more rare
- Life span seems shorter

If you have any observations of keeping Red Cherry Shrimp in water with such a low pH please feel free to share them!

King Kong Shrimp – In the News

Yahoo News has recently posted an article about “King Kong Shrimp” and how expensive they are in Japan. The article doesn’t really go into much depth about the shrimp, other than it has a short life span and it is difficult to breed successfully, but it did mention many times how much the shrimp costs.

Article: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20091106/lf_nm_life/us_taiwan_shrimp

King Kong Shrimp Info:

The King Kong Shrimp is a selectively bred strain of the Bee Shrimp (Caridina cf. cantonenis) that has been bred to be almost pure black. The reason they are difficult to breed is because they have been so highly selectively bred causing genetic issues.

What do you think of the King Kong Shrimp? Would you pay thousands of dollars for a shrimp?

MTS, good or bad?

Malaysian Trumpet Snails (MTS) are considered pests by some and a welcome, sometimes needed, addition by others. Are they good or bad for a Dwarf Shrimp aquarium? I think they are great, and here are a few reasons why:

Great Clean Up Crew
MTS are very good at cleaning up uneaten food. They will come out from under the substrate when it is feeding time and join the shrimp while they are eating. Anything that is not eaten by the shrimp, the MTS will get!

Great Health Indicator
MTS populations will spike when an aquarium is over fed. A population can quickly become an infestation when an aquarium is cared for poorly, and this is a great indication of overall tank health.

Substrate Oxygenation and Mixing
MTS spend most of their time under burrowed into the substrate. This keeps the substrate mixed up, not allowing the substrate to settle into divided levels, and they also allow oxygen to get to the bacteria found in the substrate!

Some don’t like them because their population can explode and they are livebearers so it is hard to control population spikes, but if they are not over fed the population will stay in check and there are some great benefits from having them!