Hi all,
I don't know whatever I do works for me.
Certainly does work judging by your photo.
There are pretty much the same compounds in the green algae (Chlorophyta - so fuzz algae, thread algae etc.), as veg. as they share much of the same photosynthetic pathways as all the higher plants (from mosses through to flowering plants). This wouldn't be true of BBA, Stag horn, Diatoms or BGA, and that maybe why some of these are less palatable to RCS.
In the case of RCS and other shrimps from soft water, I would expect that they are pretty efficient at getting the small amounts of calcium they need from their environment. This almost certainly isn't true of shrimps from more mineral rich waters (like the Sulawesi shrimps or snails) which would definitely benefit from a cuttle bone or similar to pick at, as well as much harder water.
All the nutrients are found in the skin of the veggies so no real point putting all of it in the tank. You could just stick the peelings in.
I quite often do use Melon skin etc, but it isn't really true that all the goodness is in the skin, although a large amount of the vitamins may be. Sweet potato flesh would be rich in starch and anthocyanins, but relatively low in protein, I don't think it would make a very good staple diet, but mixed with some greens it would probably work fairly well. I would definitely encourage the growth of a biofilm to keep your shrimps happy. This may well be why tanks with dead leaves in work well with the more problematic shrimps. When the shrimps are eating "algae", they are actually getting a much wider range of food than might appear at first, as the algae will harbour protozoa, rotifers, diatoms etc. This is why the terms "aufwuchs" or periphyton are sometimes used, rather than algae.
I only use a very small amount of other foods, mainly to add protein to their diet as this seems to boost their colouring. I know too much can stop them from moulting properly so this is why I stay away from fish flakes. I did notice when I fed fish flakes to shrimp I had a lot more deaths, mainly moulting problems.
The moulting problem may well be a protein problem and I would only feed very small amounts of any high protein food to RCS, although I would expect that Ghost or Long-armed Shrimps would benefit from it.
cheers Darrel
