# Keeping Scuds & Daphnia in your fish tank - any advice?



## Dead2fall (Jun 4, 2014)

Probably no real way to do that with livestock in the tank.

Unless you stock a ton right off the bat maybe.


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## Raymond S. (Dec 29, 2012)

Daphnia don't get along/w ferts. Don't remember which one, but one of them is a signal to the Daphnia that there is low or no food available(algae that they feed on) and so they don't breed then. A Walstad type tank would be great on the other hand.
Scuds don't care. But you will need a place in the tank where the fish can't get to.
One example would be to arrange some sticks around a corner to "fence" it off. Place floating Hortworth in there. You might find a piece of driftwood shaped good enough to use to fence off the corner so the Hortworth stays there. Also if there's a place in there where you don't mind a few leaves on the bottom this is good.


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## ZeeDeveel (May 11, 2015)

Thanks very much Raymond. I'm gonna get the Scuds (and possibly Daphs) established before introducing the fish so that should help. Definitely planning on creating special habitats for them to live in.

Is Hornwort especially good for scuds? I have quite a lot of Java Moss. I was planning on building lots of little piles of pebbles for them to hide away in. Maybe even some corrugated plastic sheeting underneath pieces of slate.

Not sure how much fertilising I'm gonna be doing, so I'll give the Daphs a try too. Not so sure what requirements they have.


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## Raymond S. (Dec 29, 2012)

I just know the Hortworth can get dense enough so fish can't get into it.
Any/all of those things you mentioned will help.


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## ChadO (Apr 2, 2009)

They will also burrow into the substrate if they can. For example, a substrate like Fluval Stratum (or many similar with the round "bb" pellets) make a great escape substrate for them. I know from chasing them with a turkey baster that they can burrow down in an instant. As others have said, they also love hiding under leaf litter, moss, etc.


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## WestHaven (Jun 30, 2012)

One thing that saltwater people do is they create a copepod/amphipod "hideout" out of rubble sized pieces of live rock. The pod-eating fish can't get to them so the pods have a chance to reproduce in relative safety.


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## greenteam (Feb 8, 2012)

What about trying snails?


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## ZeeDeveel (May 11, 2015)

Not keen on snails, they're a bit too snaily.

I've ordered some Copepods too... Are they as beneficial as Amphipods? And will the Amphipods, Copepods, Daphnia have some kind of battle for supremacy, or will they just compete for resources?


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## jasonpatterson (Apr 15, 2011)

ZeeDeveel said:


> Not keen on snails, they're a bit too snaily.
> 
> I've ordered some Copepods too... Are they as beneficial as Amphipods? And will the Amphipods, Copepods, Daphnia have some kind of battle for supremacy, or will they just compete for resources?


I'm not sure of the scale of the amphipods, copepods, and daphnia you bought, but if they're roughly the same as the ones in the US, then the amphipods are vastly larger than the others and will basically ignore them. They'll also breed constantly and you'll need a predator in there before you'd think. As far as copepods vs daphnia, the copepods will eat the daphnia, if I'm not mistaken.


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## inthepacific (Oct 21, 2012)

amphipods or scuds will breed a lot but in order to get a substantial number you'd probably want to have a large number of them first, i've introduced them to my tank and almost instantly the fish went after them. They really enjoy hunting them. So it's probably unlikely they'll be able to breed inside the tank unless you have a number of hiding spaces or a thick carpet of plants. The only way Im able to keep the numbers is because they breed like crazy in my shrimp tanks. So i just siphon them out when i see a large amount of them and drop them in my fish tanks.


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## ZeeDeveel (May 11, 2015)

The copes I bought are tiny, verging on microscopic, perhaps 0.5mm. The scuds are about 4-5mm and the daphnia maybe 1-2mm.

I'm definitely planning on building them lots of habitat. One of my main concerns is whether they'll eat each other and I'll just end up with one of them left at the end.

I might try putting some of each of them in a bucket for a week and see what happens.


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