Vacation and Feeding

[GaryP]

Ron,

This won't help you but when I lived near the coast I was able to get small "grass shrimp" at the LFS. When I was going to be gone for a week during X-mas I would put about 100 of them in my tanks and just let my fish graze while I was gone. I think the grass shrimp are just juvenile table shrimp, at least that's what they looked like. Actually I think it was good for my fish to actually have to do some hunting.

Gary

[rwilliams26]

Thanks for the great feedback all! This kind of stuff is why it's so beneficial to belong to such a great little community like this one!

[Instar]

Grass shrimp are actually full sized at about an inch and a quarter. What a great idea Gary! They carry eggs too and have live babies, so putting a wad of them in you sump will produce live zoo plankton every week. That would be good any time, actually. They'll thrive on a balanced pellet food or chunks of stuff you feed your fish too. The same is true about peppermint shrimp too, if your sump is large enough. Those guys have hundreds of babies twice a month when things are right.

[GaryP]

Yea, they are a little bigger than a Mysid. I wish we could get them around here. I think the LFS got them from local shrimpers.

Gary

[Instar]

Just go to the coast and run a fine fish net thru the marsh grass that is in the waters edge. You'll catch tons of them. Maybe not when its cold though.

[GaryP]

Yea, I know. Spending $1/doz. is a heck of a lot easier though.

Gary

[Instar]

Yeah, if you can find them for that. Last time I looked at them they were $2 for six or something like that. I was glad my seahorse eats frozen foods that day.

[GaryP]

Well, like I said, this was when I lived near the coast and the bay shrimpers would just save a bucket of them every once in a while.