If you need to go on vacation and have no one who can feed your Cherry Shrimps (or Neocaridina Shrimps), then you can check out this guide at Aquarium Blueprints to find the various ways you can give food to your pet inverts while you are away.
Before we start, it is important to note that Cherry Shrimps do not eat as much as fish. So, if you are only gone for a handful of days, then you most likely do not have to worry about the lack of food, especially if you feed them plenty before you left.
If you aren’t able to get home in a week or two, then the shrimps may start to starve. They may eventually turn into cannibalism in extreme cases.
So, if you are going on a long trip, then you can do any of the following:
1. One of the food products you can used to feed your Cherries is the Indian Almond Leaf, otherwise known as Catappa Leaf.
When dropped in your tank, the leaf will slowly decompose over the next several weeks. As a result, microorganisms, which your shrimps love to eat up, will start to grow on the decomposing parts.
Indian Almond Leaves are also great as they will add tannins to your tank water, which will ward off bacterial and fungal infections. With that said, adding a lot of them at once may cause your tank water to become acidic; therefore, you may want to limit the amount you put in your aquarium, especially if you have a smaller tank.
We recommend putting in the Indian Almond/Catappa Leaf around a week before you leave for vacation to give it time to start decomposing.
To see how you can properly add these helpful leaves, you can follow these directions.
2. Bacter AE is a great product if you are looking for a vacation food for your pet shrimps. This white powder will add biofilm to all surface areas in your aquarium.
The biofilm contains a lot of tasty microorganisms that should keep the inverts well fed while you aren’t home.
To make sure you get a healthy amount of biofilm to feed your shrimps, we recommend that you start dosing Bacter AE at least one week in advance before you need to leave for vacation.
3. Snowflake Shrimp Food is also an excellent alternative.
These compressed soy bean hulls won’t alter your water parameters or cause any ammonia spikes. As a result, you should be able to add a bunch of them in your shrimp tank before you head out.
4. If you have an automatic fish tank feeder, then you can set it up to drop food into your aquarium at regular intervals. You can use your regular pellets, flakes or the aforementioned Snowflakes.
If you don’t have one of these products, then we recommend checking out the Petbank Automatic Fish Feeder, which you can find on Amazon with this link.
