What to feed bamboo shrimp?

I bought a bamboo shrimp and asked the Petco employee if it needed special care. I asked if it was a scavenger or if it filter feed and they said they're scavengers, even though what I've read is that they filter feed. Anyways me being silly, I didn't buy any supplements for the water column. Should I get some spirulina powder? Or do I supply greens? Fish food? I can't find a good answer. I know he needs some supplementing because my aquarium was established but I did a recent 90% water change so there probably isn't much in the column... help?

 

You don't feed them, they eat microorganisms from the water column. This is why they need a current. You should be fine doing large water changes, as they will feed from what exits your filter (probably more than you think in there)

 

I suggest you should return it. Bamboos are quite hard and if you don't have enough flow they tend to get sad. You know when they get sad when they start picking stuff off the ground (looks like they're pretty down - haha). They typically do best as a species only tank. This way nothing else can take over their food source.

If you are fixed on keeping this species, spirulina for veggies, rotifers (frozen), daphnia, baby brine shrimp or such foods. I used to have some and they needed attention, like a lot. I use a pipette long enough so I can reach him without scaring him but not directly on him just in the current in front of him. I kept 3 in a 40 breeder. Never bred and I hear that nobody has bred them yet.

 

Ah yeah I forgot to mention they do best in a planted tank, which will have lots of micros for them to eat. My tanks are planted, that's why I don't feed my shrimp. (mine is a vampire shrimp but they're similar) He's fine and molts regularly.

 

I keep a bamboo in my 46 gallon community and don't feed him supplements at all. I've had him a few years now.

 

Well my tank is heavily planted! Yay

 

Heavily planted doesn't mean anything one way or the other with regard to keeping bamboo shrimp. They don't forage for micronutrients off of plants or decor the way other shrimp species do.

What you want to do is put a branch, or something else somewhat solid upright so that your bamboo can position himself on it and basically be in the line of the filter flow. That's what he'll feed from. If you don't provide him with a high access point like that, he'll be forced to scavenge on the bottom of the tank, which is not a good thing.

 

Yay! He's filter feeding. Strange I moved the mopanI wood under the current but instead he sits on a plant! Lol

 

Hope he lives, I used to had one but it was a surprise and my dad didn't know better, neither did I, those were the tank nightmare days.
But he lived quite the length, until he died while molting, I think there weren't any sufficient hiding places but he was very fun and interesting

 

Heavily planted doesn't mean anything one way or the other with regard to keeping bamboo shrimp. They don't forage for micronutrients off of plants or decor the way other shrimp species do.

What you want to do is put a branch, or something else somewhat solid upright so that your bamboo can position himself on it and basically be in the line of the filter flow. That's what he'll feed from. If you don't provide him with a high access point like that, he'll be forced to scavenge on the bottom of the tank, which is not a good thing.

Planted tanks tend to house more microorganisms than non-planted is all I meant. They contain rotifiers and cyclops and whatever other mico-crustaceans make their home there