# how do I get rid of scuds?



## Razorworm (Jul 24, 2011)

I recently had a population explosion of scuds in my Cherry shrimp tank. Does anyone know of a type of fish that will eat them and leave the shrimp alone? the tank is heavily planted and there is some Java moss in there as well. I have been wanting to add fish to this tank for a while now.


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## GeToChKn (Apr 15, 2011)

Anything that will hunt scuds would hunt baby shrimp as well.


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## hedge_fund (Jan 1, 2006)

You can only contain them but you will never ever get rid of them unless you introduce fish or break the tank down. Unfortunately they thrive off of the same conditions as your shrimp.

I use the "snail sucker" to contain the population in one of my tanks. I generally will take out about 10 a week. Keep in mind that these little savages will eat certain mosses. They stripped down my taiwan and peacock mosses.


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## acitydweller (Dec 28, 2011)

ime, move yoru shrimp and add a betta or barb. they'll make short work of your scud population. make sure to stir the substrate to get them to come out.


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## Razorworm (Jul 24, 2011)

im not trying to totally get rid of them, just reduce their numbers. As far as the shrimp are concerned, as long as the population flourishes, I am cool with a few babys getting eaten.


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## DogFish (Jul 16, 2011)

If you pull the adult shrimp and put a Betta in for a week that will put a serious dent in the Scuds and baby shrimp you miss. 

You can also catch a good number with a baited bottle. I use a small maple syrup bottle that I put some fish food in. I tire a long sting to the neck, place in the tank, turn off the lights for a while or over night. Pull the bottle dump out the Scuds, shrimp emails into a bowl, the keepers go back feed everything else to your other tanks.


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## theshadybird (Sep 25, 2012)

+1 what dogfish said, but instead of dumping them, you should mail the scuds to me, lol! I would very much appreciate them!


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## Razorworm (Jul 24, 2011)

DogFish said:


> If you pull the adult shrimp and put a Betta in for a week that will put a serious dent in the Scuds and baby shrimp you miss.
> 
> You can also catch a good number with a baited bottle. I use a small maple syrup bottle that I put some fish food in. I tire a long sting to the neck, place in the tank, turn off the lights for a while or over night. Pull the bottle dump out the Scuds, shrimp emails into a bowl, the keepers go back feed everything else to your other tanks.


Good idea on the trap, my Rainbows will enjoy the treat.


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## blacksheep998 (Jan 16, 2011)

I had an outbreak of them in my CRS tank when I first set it up. I ended up using a turkey baster to suck out whatever ones I saw, usually could get 5-10 in a half hour. Eventually there were less and less until I basically stopped seeing them.

Last scud I spotted in my tank was at least 6 months ago.


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## jone (Nov 27, 2011)

love to see your maple syrup bottle gizmo..how do the scuds enter but not small shrimp??


DogFish said:


> If you pull the adult shrimp and put a Betta in for a week that will put a serious dent in the Scuds and baby shrimp you miss.
> 
> You can also catch a good number with a baited bottle. I use a small maple syrup bottle that I put some fish food in. I tire a long sting to the neck, place in the tank, turn off the lights for a while or over night. Pull the bottle dump out the Scuds, shrimp emails into a bowl, the keepers go back feed everything else to your other tanks.


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## Razorworm (Jul 24, 2011)

jone said:


> love to see your maple syrup bottle gizmo..how do the scuds enter but not small shrimp??


I did it last night. Shrimp, even small ones got in there. I just put the shrimp back in the tank and the skuds went to the rainbows....RIP.


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## Nambroth (Apr 21, 2012)

Let me tell you about my experience with scuds. This is long and you are welcome to skip to the end, which contains my only snippet of advice.

In early 2011, I got a shipment of shrimp in for my 12 gallon nanocube, and despite not using the water they were shipped in, somehow a single scud hitchhiked in (either on the net or it grabbed onto a shrimp in the transfer). I glimpsed it spinning around in the water one day and was confused-- I thought it was a micro baby shrimp but it moved incorrectly. Needless to say, it was already too late when I researched them and decided to remove it, as within a week it went from one to a dozen or more. I sucked them out with a baster whenever I could, but they would go deep into the substrate.

For a while, I thought, "Eh. No worse than pest snails, and they aren't so bad". Boy was I wrong! Despite the tank being shrimp only, and I target fed the shrimp sparingly, the scud population exploded without any predators to keep them in check. First they ate all my mosses, then they started eating all of my leafy plants, then they were harassing the shrimp at feeding time to the point where I was losing shrimp. Unacceptable! I didn't have a safe tank to house my shrimp in temporarily, so in desperation, I carefully removed each shrimp into a heated bucket of water, I discarded all of my plants and filter media, and then I ran boiling water in the substrate and tank several times. I rinsed the substrate and tank out in-between each boiling water treatment. I didn't want to use any chemicals at all since I intended for the tank to be a shrimp tank once again.

After completely nuking my poor tank and substrate, I let it cool and re-filled it with all fresh water, new filter media, and plants from my main tank that was 100% for sure scud free. I even dipped and rinsed the plants just in case, and went over them very carefully. I spent an hour with a high intensity flash light, inspecting the shrimp bucket, to make sure that there were no scuds in there either. 

I knew it was a risk to my shrimp to put them into what was essentially a sterile, new tank, but I was desperate to get rid of the scuds. To their credit, the cherry shrimp did okay despite the stress, and I didn't lose any. For months I rejoiced, delighted to be rid of scuds. I didn't add any new shrimp or animals to the tank, except some rice fish that I hatched out from eggs in separate containers. 

Then, somehow, I started noticing scuds again! I was so frustrated. I could not figure out what I could have missed. Was boiling the substrate not enough? It sure killed all the MLTs in there!

Anyhow, I have noticed over the last two months that the scuds are not taking over my tank or eating my mosses (or bothering my shrimp). In fact, I never see free-swimming scuds, and only ever see them in the substrate. In my observation this is due to two things:

1. I now feed my shrimps in a glass dish, so the food never filters down into the substrate. In order to get at the shrimp food, the scuds must swim up around the lip of the dish and down into it. This poses a problem for them because;
2. My ricefish, _oryzias woworae_, which are too small to eat baby shrimp, are just big enough to hunt and eat scuds. They've learned to hunt the substrate, and if a scud makes the mistake of swimming upward into the water (or toward the food dish), a ricefish will eat it. 

It's wonderful how quickly the tiny ricefish have learned to eat the scuds! I have never seen them bother even the tiniest of baby shrimps, but even if they took one or two, it is well worth the service they provide in scud control.


*TL;DR:* Scuds were terrible in my shrimp-only tank, I tried to nuke them but they came back, but now my careful feeding with a glass dish and addition of ricefish keep them in check where they are not currently a nuisance. Only time will tell if this works out or if the scuds will get out of hand again. I will keep an eye on things.


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## danielt (Dec 19, 2012)

Ghost shrimp nailed all of my common snails. I don't know about scuds though. You should look it up. I've seen Ghost shrimp sucking snails out of their shell several times, I'm guessing you need to starve them to do that.


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## DoubleT (Apr 18, 2012)

blacksheep998 said:


> I had an outbreak of them in my CRS tank when I first set it up. I ended up using a turkey baster to suck out whatever ones I saw, usually could get 5-10 in a half hour. Eventually there were less and less until I basically stopped seeing them.
> 
> Last scud I spotted in my tank was at least 6 months ago.


This is the method I use, works very well. Just watch for them during feeding time and suck out the ones you see.


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## OldMike (Sep 7, 2009)

Scud population in my 10 gal shrimp tank has expoded. Ate all my moss. I've tried starving them by feeding the shrimp from a platform suspended from the glass tank top. I had three assassin snails in there to control MTS. Scuds have harassed and killed all three. They are now driving my shrimp crazy and today I saw a bunch feeding on what was maybe a newly molted shrimp. They've gotta go! Set up a 5 gal tank to house shrimp temporarily. Gonna break down the 10 and start over. New substrate, plants, rocks, etc. A big concern is whether I can rid the Eheim of all traces of them. Any suggestions? Gotta get of rid of these nasty little critters.


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## trueblu8 (Mar 3, 2012)

Old Mike did you ever have any luck getting rid of those scuds?


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