Bacter ae

[piker]

Keep hearing the name bacter ae come up, is it really that good?

I also read its easy to over do it and cause problems, what amounts would you recommend in a 37l tank.

 

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[JSak]

1 hour ago, piker said:

 

Keep hearing the name bacter ae come up, is it really that good?

I also read its easy to over do it and cause problems, what amounts would you recommend in a 37l tank.

 

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Personally, I think if there's only one food someone could afford or get I'd recommend bacter ae. It's basically ground up and dried biofilm, like the stuff that naturally grows in your tank that the shrimp are constantly picking at. It's a powder food so it can disperse throughout the entire tank. This allows both adults and babies to have the chance to feed, whereas with pellet foods the bigger adults might outcompete most of the others and the babies might not be able to get any at all. 

 

As for overdosing, I can see how that'd be a problem because the feeding instructions are very vague and it can raise your nitrates and ammonia if you overfeed. However, I think that with all types of foods overfeeding can cause these kinds of problems. It actually depends on the amount of shrimp you have in the tank IMO. I have a 30 gal RCS tank with hundreds of shrimps and I feed them 1 full scoop, which seems to be more than enough for them. For the tanks with less shrimp I usually feed around 1/10 scoop or more, but I tend to overfeed to ensure that the babies get enough food as well. If you get it I say you should experiment to see how much your shrimp like it. Start off with a lower dose than you think your shrimp might like and steadily work your way up to feeding more if they appear to be eating it quickly. Hope this helps!

[piker]

I will give it a go, thanks.

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[DevinB]

I use bacter ae in all of my tanks at least twice a week, and I dose it by dipping a wettened toothpick into the container of powder,  then tap it on the rim of the container to drop the loose powder. Then I just swirl it into the tank water so it spreads around and sticks to my moss. I've noticed a significant increase in babies surviving since starting using it in this manner (roughly a 15% increase per egg clutch)

 

As for overdosing it.. I had a mishap in my 36 gallon just a few weeks ago.. I keep a (probably 2 Tbsp) container made for dipping sauce (stolen from Applebee's... Don't tell on me..) that I keep a mix of bacter ae, shrimp baby food, and some mineral powders and bee pollen in my shrimp room. When I was taking some pictures during feeding time I accidently knocked the entire container into the tank... Other than a massive feeding frenzy that lasted 2 days and a very very slight recycle (corrected within 24 hours) everything was fine and I noticed no deaths at all in a tank of 150 or so shrimp. I did a 10% water change as soon as it happened and again after 3 days to be safe just because of the mineral powders, but I don't think I even needed the second WC to be honest..