best food for fire reds!

[ahpui6]

Hey everyone, need some recommendations for fire red diet! All views and opinions are greatly appreciated. Wish to have a balance diet for healthy growth, colour and perhaps breeding! ^^

[Urban Aquaria]

Best food for fire reds is other fire reds! aka shrimp recycling program.

So far, i've fed Hikari Shrimp Cuisine, Crab Cuisine, BorneoWild Color, Crimson, Red Ruby, Vigor, Shield, Barley, Mosura Graze, Gravidas, Shrimpton, Repashy Soilent Green, along with blanched fresh vegetables like zuchinni and carrots. All set upon within minutes and consumed very quickly.

Seriously though, they will eat anything so its a good idea to give them a varied diet... truth is, spending crazy amounts of money on tons of different extra vitamins, tonics and special foods for shrimps is the favorite side hobby of us shrimp keepers anyways.

[ahpui6]

oh my gosh. the list will make me go bankrupt! haha! I at most can afford 60 to 70 bucks on food for them. able to provide a narrower list?

anyway, I suppose you are joking about fire reds as food for fire reds? or is it... ... ??

[Urban Aquaria]

oh my gosh. the list will make me go bankrupt! haha! I at most can afford 60 to 70 bucks on food for them. able to provide a narrower list?

You can go for those foods that are specified to improve coloration, especially red coloration... like the BorneoWild Color or Red Ruby. There are many other brands that have similar color enhancing foods so you can try them out too.

I like using blanched zuchinni and carrots, because they can be left in the tank for up to 48 hours (wouldn't scatter all over the place and foul the water quickly like other pellet or wafer food) so the shrimps will have alot of time to slowly graze on it. Its a continuous source of fresh food, and i can remove any remaining bits easily.

Mineral rocks are another item that are good for shrimps, i use the BorneoWild Mine Rock in all my tanks. I've found that before using such rocks, my shrimp shells were nice and red but more of a matt look, but after adding in the mineral rocks into the tanks, over time the shrimp shells start to become very shiny and glossy, like as if they have been going through car grooming/polishing sessions.

anyway, I suppose you are joking about fire reds as food for fire reds? or is it... ... ??

Well, hungry shrimps will do their job of clearing up dead livestock rapidly, so they will inevitably eat the other dead fire reds too. I rarely get a chance to even remove any dead shrimps anyways, the existing shrimps eat them up too quickly, i only get to see some shell or tail remains.

[ahpui6]

Oh, thats a very detail explanation and lots of valuable insights from you! Thanks a lot. I guess I will probably be getting a Borneowild grow as well as red ruby. Thinking of shield and perhaps some mulberry leaves from bros in this forum. Really appreciate your help in this matter ! Learnt a lot from you on many occasions!

[vannel]

You should be looking for food sources which have some form of Astaxanthin included. Astaxanthin is what causes the red pigmentation to appear and taken in appropriate quantities, should improve the reds. So, always check the contents.

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[ahpui6]

Thanks bro Vannel. Time to google and read up a bit more! I feel quite under-knowledge! Definitely will be more observant when reading the content labels! Thanks much!

[vannel]

No problem bro. Just wiki Astaxanthin for more information. Look under natural sources and you should see some common ingredients that always appear in the contents of fish/shrimp food. Many of those commercial products that boast better reds just have slightly more percentages of some natural Astaxanthin like krill meal or salmon meal, etc.. I believe some hobbyists even go to the extreme and purchase Astaxanthin powder extracted from algae and mix that into regular feeds.

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[ahpui6]

Wows, I didnt expect Astaxanthin to be so beneficial to human too. New knowledge =)

[markus92]

Hikari Shrimp Cuisine! i swear by it, i keep fire reds and they seem to be nicely coloured ^^ well some breeders make their own food and rotate the diet of the shrimps i guess it goes down to how much effort u want to put in daily.. but yea those people have not just 1 tank they have racks of tanks and feeding Hikari Shrimp Cuisine would probly cost more than to prepare zurich for their prized collections!

[ahpui6]

I see! Thanks Markus92! I have bought borneowild products. Guess I will try them out first and possibly give a review on it after a few months!

[tureblue82]

borneowild GROW is good and effective, personal experience.

[ahpui6]

o.o! Im using grow now! found some assurance after seeing ur comments!