1. Food Control and Saving Money
Shrimps are definitely very messy eaters. Some aquarists even compare them with children. Which do not eat all the food you give them. They only eat the parts that they like the most and until they are full.
Feeding dish helps to prevent spillage of the food. Which can be very pricey actually. It keeps pellets, flakes, worms and etc. in the dish, instead of dropping into the substrate or somewhere else and then swept away during maintenance in the best case scenario.
Having a feeding dish helps you to determine how much your shrimp will actually eat within a few hours. This way you can see if you are feeding them too much. If there are still some of the food left after four hours, you know that are overfeeding them.
2. Easy to Clean Substrate and Reduces Contamination
Some people can say that shrimps are scavengers and this is their job to clean the aquarium by picking up everything. This is true but only to some degree.
Without feeding dish, food debris will most likely go into the open spaces between your substrate. Keeping your substrate clean is important because food (that is left within the soil) can spoil over time, which can negatively impact your aquarium water and shrimp in the long run.
It will not happen with the feeding dish. Old food combined with shrimp waste will be in a feeding dish making it a lot easier to remove.
Your aquarium will have a significantly less chance of planarian bloom and hydra contamination. Thereby it increases the survival rate of your colony. Of course, a few shrimp might carry the food away but generally, it stays on the feeding dish.
Also, shrimp feeding dish requires very small maintenance. It is easy to wash and can be steam sterilized if it is needed. For regular cleanings, you can simply use water and soap or just siphon it.
You can clearly see the food entering the substrate where the shrimp cannot reach it. With a feeding dish, it just spreads out in the dish instead of going into the substrate. This means that your microflora will not be too overpopulated because there will be a food shortage in the substrate. Having microflora is healthy but having it too much just looks bad.
You will also have more control over things like planarian flatworm as they mostly feed on whatever they can find in your substrate.
3. Less Shrimp Aggression
The more food is on the dish (instead of getting into the substrate) the more satisfied will be your adult and baby shrimp.
4. Count your Shrimp
Feeding dish will attract most of your shrimps. Therefore, it will be the simplest way to find out about how many shrimp you have in the aquarium at this moment. It can be very useful once your colony starts increasing in numbers.
5. Looks cool
If you put it the right way, it can blend very nicely into the environment without any distraction. Some feeding dishes are even made in a decoration style.
6. The Price of Feeding Dishes
Well. They are quite cheap. You can buy them for a couple of dollars and they will serve you forever. There is nothing to add here.
We sell shrimp feeding dishes at only 120bdt.
There are also some Cons.
1. One Spot is Bad
You should not leave the dish in the same spot after cleaning it. Otherwise, you are risking to get cyanobacteria or Black beard algae (BBA) and some other nasty things on the surface below the feeding dish. The easier way to avoid this kind of problem is to put the dish in another spot every time after cleaning it.
2. Algae in the Feeding Dish
Since your aquarium light normally shines at a direct angle on the feeding dish, it will start to grow green algae a lot quicker than any other place in your aquarium. As a result, the feeding dish will be covered with it quite fast. You cannot prevent it from happening and the only way to remove it is to clean it every week or two.
For the sake of your shrimp’s health, it is better if you clean the dish to avoid your shrimp setting in an ammonia generating spot that can kill them.
Tips:
- You can bury the feeding dish so that the top of it is level with the substrate. In this case, shrimps can just jump in instead of going around the glass finding a way in.
- In my personal opinion, the glass works best as opposed to ceramic or stone dishes. It is easier to see when it is dirty and you do not have to worry about it leaching anything that will be dangerous to your shrimp.
- Some people complain that their shrimps grab their pieces of food and take off for the most part. The main reason is that the feeding dish is too small for your number of shrimps. If it is possible, get a bigger feeding dish than a smaller one. So that there will be more space to accommodate your shrimps during feeding. It will also help to avoid your shrimp becoming over aggressive and having to fight in a small space to get a very fair share of the food.
- It would be better to put the feeding dish in the area with the lowest flow so that the food does not get blown around and the shrimps can sit in it and eat peacefully.
- You do not have to buy the nice-looking expensive feeding dishes. Ashtrays are a lot cheaper but they just do not look as nice.
- If you do not want to buy it, there is no need to buy it. You can make the feeding dish out of any bottle! There are many Youtube videos about how to cut the glass bottle at home. Just be safe and use sandpaper to smooth the edges.
copyright- https://aquariumbreeder.com/everything-about-feeding-dishes-for-shrimp/
