# Crystal Red Shrimp (To meat or not to meat?)



## CrystalMethShrimp (Apr 27, 2010)

An interesting conversation came about with me and frank about whether or not to feed my CRS fresh, crushed snails. Was it a nutritional benefit or a catastrophe waiting to happen? 

Just to put everyone up to speed, when i started to keep crs in my 6 gallon fluval Edge I noticed a few pond snails, which i thought nothing of. After about a month or so I began to realize the population of the snails were beginning to explode so I thought hey why not put them to good use.

My reasoning behind feeding fresh snails from the existing tank is that it eliminates the need to feed other live food which may invariably introduce outside virus or parasites. Prior I used to feed them frozen blood worms. 

Frank's opposing view is that it's unnatural and that the best way to breed crs would be to mimic their wild environment. Now Frank is a seasoned breeder with more high grade shrimps then I can buy even if I sold my house =D so I don't take his advise lightly.

My rebuttal is that crs are natural scavengers with a diet consisting mostly of biofilm and algea and also a small percentage of dead sea creatures. Let's face it shrimps function as the ocean's clean up crew. They pick up decaying bits that are too small for crabs and too large for micro bacteria to break down. They're the middle men, sort to speak. They require protein and what better way then to feed them a few fresh snails each week. Again I limit the amount of "meat" I introduce to their overall diet..roughly 20%. So if anybody else have any educated guess or advise to contribute to the matter, please welcome.


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## Ebi-Ken (Jul 9, 2010)

Hey Jay,

Let me clarify, what I am saying is for high growth to occur. Protein in a shrimps diet is necessary. But using crushed snails as a diet is not something I personally would do. Dead snails foul water quickly and regrades water quality and snails have a slime coat that shrimps don't feast on but rather other organisms like planaria and copepods would. However, keeping in mind that you do speed sparingly which would of course not have much of an effect on water quality. Don't get me wrong though, shrimp are scavengers like you say. When a shrimp dies it will be cleaned up by other fellow shrimp mates.

Why I say mimic the natural environments feedings is sufficient is because of this: for an instance, algae is something shrimp feed on for the majority of the time in the wild. Just looking at a randomly picked brand of algae wafers: http://www.hikari.info/tropical/t_04.html scroll down and you see the ingredients break down. It already contains 33% protein in algae and ontop of that, algae has natural colorants which will aid in the coloration of your shrimp.

So all in all, feeding shrimp snails as a protein source is perfectly fine, but they get even more of it in algae with the benefit of natural color enhancers.
Hope that clears things up.

On a side note, Here's a good chance to explain something to shrimp keepers. Feeding schedule for shrimp: feeding more times a day with a lesser amount is better than feeding them once a day with a large amount. Reason behind it is, by feeding them less sparingly, you know that the shrimp will finish the food for sure which decreases chances of uneaten food which interprets to no ammonia, nitrite, nitrate spikes, and lower chance of having planaria or other unwanted organism problems or bacterial blooms. Also, it keeps shrimps active for most of the day because they will have the impression that there is food at any given point of the day. They just have to find it. Also, a variety diet is the best diet. Just feeding algae wafer's isn't good as algae wafers left uneaten will for sure spoil much faster.


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## jamesren (Aug 27, 2008)

CrystalMethShrimp said:


> My rebuttal is that crs are natural scavengers with a diet consisting mostly of biofilm and algea and also a small percentage of dead sea creatures. Let's face it shrimps function as the ocean's clean up crew. They pick up decaying bits that are too small for crabs and too large for micro bacteria to break down.


Are we taking about fresh water CRS or sea shrimp? 
I have no idea about salt water shrimp. If is CRS, then I am total agree with frank. Beside that, If there are any luck of nutrition in a tank. shrimp won't get it from same tank.


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## Zebrapl3co (Mar 29, 2006)

Jiang604 said:


> ... It already contains 33% protein in algae and ontop of that, algae has natural colorants which will aid in the coloration of your shrimp...


Yep, I agree for the same reason mentioned by Frank. There is absolutely nothing wrong with feeding meating food. It's just that they get the colour from the algae, dead leaves and other plant protiens.
And if it has to be meat, I would've personally picked brime shrimps over any other meat.

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## Beijing08 (Jul 19, 2010)

I'm thinking snails must be a delicious meal for these guys. Nonetheless, the best way to find out would be to try it. I'm sure it won't kill your shrimps...just watch carefully how they react towards the snails for the first few times, and see if they become healthier as time goes. If it has no effect, then I think sticking with the "snail-less" plan is on the safer side, because that is how traditional breeders set out to breed their red bees.


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## solarz (Aug 31, 2010)

Is it possible for pond snails that "appear spontaneously" in your aquarium to have parasites? I have a bunch of pond snails and I was wondering if it was safe to crush them for my guppies? I did that once and the guppy seemed to love it, but I'm worried about introducing parasites or other diseases.


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## AquaNeko (Jul 26, 2009)

solarz said:


> Is it possible for pond snails that "appear spontaneously" in your aquarium to have parasites? I have a bunch of pond snails and I was wondering if it was safe to crush them for my guppies? I did that once and the guppy seemed to love it, but I'm worried about introducing parasites or other diseases.


I'm not sure about pond snails but I have read something on ramhorn snails (perhaps it was snails in general as I can't remember which it pertained to but it was owards snails) that if you have them to isolate them for a month min. as something about parasities needing an immediate host and that normally after a month if they can't find one they die off. I could be wrong but that is what I remember reading up on. If I have time I'll see if I can find a link on that unless someone here can reference you that. My ramhorns have bred like rabbits since last Oct/09 and I've had them in contained in thier own container for a while so they're pretty parasite free if that data source I read is correct.


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