# Amphipods



## Franco (Jun 13, 2010)

Fish with mouths bigger than your amphibods


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## avandss (Dec 15, 2010)

whats an amphipod


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## 10gallonplanted (Oct 31, 2010)

Yeah the problem is i have shrimp in there also.








Thats one, not my photo.


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## boringname (Nov 11, 2010)

10gallonplanted said:


> I have about 60 or so in my 10 gallon with RCS and Ghost shrimp and their numbers keep growing. I don't over feed, I feed very little every two days. Does anybody know how to get rid of amphipods?


Scuds eat the bacteria eating dead plant matter so restricting fish food shouldn't matter.

I don't know of a fish which eat scuds but not RCS.


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## forrestp38829 (Nov 17, 2010)

SO do these "scuds" predate anything besides bacteria in freshwater? In my reefs, I consider them beneficial. Do I want them in my FW tank also?


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## dhavoc (May 4, 2006)

no you dont. without predators they will breed unchecked. in small numbers and abundant food they are pretty harmless, but when hungry or in large numbers they can and will affect your shrimp populations. they cant take down a healthy shrimp, but in large enough numbers can take on a newly molted or more frequently newborn shrimp which are easy prey. no easy way to remove them as they will infest every crack and creavice in your tank including the filter and under the gravel. if one of my tanks becomes infested and the population uncontrollable, i pretty much have to nuke the tank and start all over again. the newborn scuds (common name for these along with gammarus) are tiny so elimination without nuking a tank is next to impossible. i use a turkey baster to suck up visable ones in lightly infested tanks (especially the mating ones). fish actually love them.


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## mossback (Aug 12, 2010)

Here is what I would do:

Trap as many shrimp as practical and move them to a cycled q tank. 

I assume that the tank is planted and that you want to save the plants; so move them to a second q tank. 

You want to use separate q tanks because either the shrimp trapping/sorting process or the plant relocation process could result in some scud stowaways. If the plants are contaminated, they can be treated with hydrogen peroxide, potassium permanganate, etc and returned to a disinfected tank. But the shrimp would need to be separated from any remaining scuds mechanically, so you don't want to have the plants in the shrimp q tank to complicate matters. 

Then nuke the original tank, and start over. 

Scuds (either gammarus or hyalella) are supposed to be a excellent live food for all sorts of fish. Unlike daphnia, they are not filter feeders. They will eat practically anything that can't defend itself. Such as algae. The problem is that after they finish off the algae, they will eat all the plants for dessert. 

So you wouldn't want to introduce them into heavily planted tanks. However, in lightly planted tanks with active fish species, scuds might be a useful (and manageable) food source. Just raise them in a species tank, and balance feeding and harvesting to manage the population properly.


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## boringname (Nov 11, 2010)

In nature scuds would be the primary food source for my Rainbow Darter so if you want to mail me any you don't want I'm all ears.


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## 10gallonplanted (Oct 31, 2010)

Yeah they seem to be eating my Singapore moss down to almost nothing. Im going to try to get a lot with the turkey baster today.


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## 10gallonplanted (Oct 31, 2010)

PMed, boringname


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## dhavoc (May 4, 2006)

yeah they really love mosses. amazing how fast they can strip it down to the central stems. they wont touch fissidens though.


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## 10gallonplanted (Oct 31, 2010)

Well i got about 45ish today, they're sitting in their new home right now(a fish-bowl) until i figure out what to do with them.


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## Franco (Jun 13, 2010)

Sell them to the LFS! I used to sell daphnia, scuds, ostracods, and california blackworms to my LFS in college all the time. People buy them up like crazy.


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## gordonrichards (Jun 20, 2009)

Turkey baste them out every day. Eventually you'll get them all over time.

-Gordon


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