# Scuds eating my plants?!



## lemonnoodle (Apr 1, 2013)

Scuds eat all plants. Hornwort, moss, sprite down to the stem. It may have sometihng to do with which species but yeah. They are dangerous. As for killing them without harming shrimp? There is no way. Like a bandaid sorry dude.


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## Raymond S. (Dec 29, 2012)

I go to great lengths to get them for food for my fish and you want to get rid of them...go figure...LOL...
Unfortunately you will never be completely rid of them unless you remove the shrimp and poison the scuds. Yes mostly they are eating the bad parts of the plants but just like trumpet snails who don't stop when they get down to the bottom of the algae on my Java Moss, they just continue to eat and the bottom of the tank becomes littered
with tiny pieces of Java Moss which was eaten off by them, these scuds don't necessarily stop at the end of the bad part of the plant and just keep eating the good parts.
Your next problem is that anything you put in there to eat the scuds will also eat at least the baby shrimp. Except one fish. No actually there are more fish who won't eat the shrimp but only one which will eat the scuds(from what I've found).
That would be the Pigmy sunfish. Three types are available but their only color variations from different locations. Unless you can find someone on here who will give you one at shipping cost they will cost you about $30 after shipping so I doubt you'd be interested. They are extremely shy, aren't much in the way of color but then you likely wouldn't see them anyway. But just for the record, the way those shrimp dart when frightened, after they do the fish usually can't find them so they only eat just a few babies but will definately eat the scuds and only live food for these. That is why I want the scuds. To feed my Banded Pigmy sunfish. But ATM I only have one.
BTW: If you decide to poison them, don't use poison which contains copper or the tank can no longer have shrimp in it.


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## hedge_fund (Jan 1, 2006)

Scuds will eat your mosses like it's going out of style...I once had them and my mosses were literally eradicated. Had to tear down the tank in order to get rid of the scuds.

Maybe put some fairly aggressive fish in there for a few months before doing the breakdown? I can see Tiger Barbs really doing a number on them...


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## Whiskey (Feb 15, 2005)

Wow!!! I've ALWAYS wondered why I can't keep moss in this tank!! Bummer.

Well - this tank has Fluval stratum that's breaking down after 2 years, I have to use moss to maintain PH now,.. and there are only 2 shrimp yet that I can easily house in my 2G tank while I handle this. So now may be the time.

How can I poison them? I can pull the substrate, fill with water - do the poison to make sure the eggs and such are all off the plants, then add Amazonia substrate and refil. A month later this tank will be in much better shape than it is now.

Does bleach work? I can just dose prime to clean up after that.

Whiskey


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## Whiskey (Feb 15, 2005)

What about heat? These things are not in my discus tank, if I crank the temp to 86 deg will that wipe them out? 

The fish is a great idea, but these things are in my filter, and the substrate, both places the fish can't go.

Whiskey


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## Whiskey (Feb 15, 2005)

Uh oh!!!

I'm doing some reading,.. and apparently Scuds will also eat shrimp!!! I haven't come across any good ways to eliminate them yet though.

Whiskey


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## lemonnoodle (Apr 1, 2013)

Scuds definitely eat baby shrimps. If you don't have any other infestations, I would just dose with seltzer water. Drown them.


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## Whiskey (Feb 15, 2005)

Okay,.. I'm totally going to do this. 

If you were going to kill Skuds and had no shrimp left in the tank, how would you do it? Keep in mind I still have plants. Mostly Anubis, and crypt.

I was thinking about switching substrate, then pouring bleach in to make a plant like bleach dip. I could then use prime, and do a 100% water change.

Is there something less aggressive I could do? Would you add the bleach before, or after the new substrate?

Thank you,
Whiskey


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## lemonnoodle (Apr 1, 2013)

The way I would do it is take the plants out and set the tank to dry up outside for a few days.

Another way would be do CO2 overdose them which would be ok for your plants and probably not kill your beneficial bacteria. If you have a CO2 system use that or seltzer water.

I wouldnt do the bleach personally because I hate recycling my tanks and dealing with algae blooms, bacteria, etc


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## Whiskey (Feb 15, 2005)

The tank does not have CO2, and I hesitate to let it dry because of the plants, and I really don't want to put any of that driftwood or those plants in another tank for fear of the infestation spreading.

Seltzer water sounds interesting, will that kill them for sure? Will it kill eggs? Are there eggs?

Thank you,
Whiskey


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## Whiskey (Feb 15, 2005)

I have all the shrimp out!

Since it is such a small tank, and I don't use Excel anymore but still had some left I decided to start this by trying a 15X overdose of Excel. I hear this stuff is a biocide, and that it's bad for shrimp and such at these levels, so we'll see what happens.

Whiskey


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## DarkCobra (Jun 22, 2004)

15X Excel overdose will probably kill the biofilter. Maybe plants too, especially mosses. Everything killed will rot and cause an ammonia spike. If high enough that may cause additional burns to surviving plants. Be prepared to manage the fallout if you go through with this.


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## Whiskey (Feb 15, 2005)

DarkCobra said:


> 15X Excel overdose will probably kill the biofilter. Maybe plants too, especially mosses. Everything killed will rot and cause an ammonia spike. If high enough that may cause additional burns to surviving plants. Be prepared to manage the fallout if you go through with this.


Shoot. (or some other word that means the same)

I've already done it - then left for work. I figured this was a no risk first assault. I was under the impression Excel never hurt plants.

I'm not worried about the bio filter, I'll have to recycle anyway after I swap out the fluval substrate for Amazonia, but if all the 2 year old anubius died it would be a real bummer. 

Sigh,.. That was dumb - How dumb I'll find out when I get home.
Whiskey


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## DarkCobra (Jun 22, 2004)

Excel's a biocide, it kills _everything_ if strong enough.

What I presented was a worst-case scenario. As that's what you should always consider and be prepared for when performing experiments like these. I've seen others do similar overdoses, one lost everything, another got away with very minor damage. Hopefully your tank will be like the latter, knock on wood. Anubias are tough plants and have a fighting chance.


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## Whiskey (Feb 15, 2005)

Well,...
I got home, and not only are the plants fine, but the Scuds are happily swimming around the tank. This may have some effect because I haven't seen them all out and swimming like this before, but they are far from dead.

Looks like bleach it is.
Whiskey


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## mikeh7172 (Feb 22, 2013)

*scudfusion*

Ever since I was a kid we always named our plecos SCUD. Right around the Persian Gulf War so it was kind of a tribute thing. So i was a little confused but after I used google images I now know what these look like and will watch out for them.


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## DarkCobra (Jun 22, 2004)

Ironically, I just finished nuking our scud tank here. We were raising them for live food, which we no longer need. Now they're just an annoyance, and by sheer numbers are creeping Stef completely out. Sorry, scuds. LOL.

1/2 cup of bleach in a 5G sure got their attention. They all popped out of their hiding places and were swimming around frantically. Took about 30 minutes before most of the activity died down. I'm surprised it took that long...

Have added filter media from another tank, and will add fresh plants. Only saved a few, like a lovely bunch of subwassertang. They'll be placed with hungry guppies or bettas for a while, to be picked clean.


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## Whiskey (Feb 15, 2005)

These things are amazing!!! If they weren't so hungry I'd keep them just out of respect.

I put about 2 cups of bleach in a 10G tank, and after 10 min they were still alive! Though not happy. At that point I got worried about the plants, so I pulled everything out and put it in a large bin (dry) and sucked all the substrate and water out of the tank. I then took the tank outside for a good wash down. I rinsed everything off in the bath, filters, plants, wood, rocks,.. and then put it back in the tank.

Right now it's just a bare bottom tank with a bunch of plants floating around, and I am on high alert for scuds.

My Amazonia comes in tomorrow, but I'm keeping it like this until the weekend to make sure no scuds are left.

Whiskey


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## Whiskey (Feb 15, 2005)

I did find one Scud - dead. Whew. I'm on the look out for more.

On the grounds that everyone likes photos,.. here is where I am at right now:

10G by Wiskey2727, on Flickr

My only before is from quite a while ago. Before the scuds really went wild. (when there were still fish in there).

Whiskey


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