# Best Scud Eaters?



## PunknDestroy (May 9, 2013)

You won't completely eradicate them but good scud predators are dwarf puffers, the more active loaches, anabatnoids will sometimes go after them, and badi badis. The only problem is when there's a predator present they will stay hidden in your substrate so you have to always keep a predator in the tank. They also colonize filter media. They're rather tough to kill off.


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## acitydweller (Dec 28, 2011)

I had dwarf german rams and golden rams which pretty much ate them till extinction.

I would imagine a variety of loaches would also fit the bill.


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## VJM (Feb 9, 2013)

My bettas decimated the thriving scud population almost immediately. I have little tanks, but I bet a betta is up to the task in your tank.


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## briscoe (Mar 29, 2013)

The only thing that sucks about loaches is that I have a good amount of pond snails in this tank. I want them to concentrate on the scuds, I don't want loaches getting distracted by the snails.


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## PunknDestroy (May 9, 2013)

Stick with the dwarf loaches and it should be fine. Yoyo loaches work really well.



briscoe said:


> The only thing that sucks about loaches is that I have a good amount of pond snails in this tank. I want them to concentrate on the scuds, I don't want loaches getting distracted by the snails.


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## starquestMM (Aug 26, 2012)

I think the flying fox I have eats them.


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## acitydweller (Dec 28, 2011)

every consider adding some UG?


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## LB79 (Nov 18, 2011)

Any dwarf cichlid.


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## hedge_fund (Jan 1, 2006)

I have had scuds before and I tried everything possible to get rid of them. In the end I just tore down the tank and started fresh with new gravel etc. Supposedly AlgaeFix kills invertebrates so I dumped a whole small bottle into a 15 gallon tank. 90% of the scuds died but some still survived. I then started pouring bleach into the water which killed half of my plants. Scuds still lived! Adding fish did nothing as there always were a few survivors.

Your other option might be to just gas them with co2. Generally when I get plants I throw them in a 5 gallon bucket with a cover on it. The cover has a small hole drilled where I run a co2 hose and I literally inject at such high flow that I cannot count the bubbles. I'll let it run overnight. Once you've dealt with scuds you refuse to get them again and will go through great lengths to avoid them like the plague (which they essentially are).


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## acitydweller (Dec 28, 2011)

a holistic approach without using chemicals is to dry the tank out completely. ive done this with mosses, driftwood and nano tanks where scuds scurried to the last droplets of water...


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## briscoe (Mar 29, 2013)

acitydweller said:


> every consider adding some UG?


The problem is that I want to keep shrimp as well, and from what I understand the UG will kill/eat baby shrimp.



hedge_fund said:


> I have had scuds before and I tried everything possible to get rid of them. In the end I just tore down the tank and started fresh with new gravel etc. Supposedly AlgaeFix kills invertebrates so I dumped a whole small bottle into a 15 gallon tank. 90% of the scuds died but some still survived. I then started pouring bleach into the water which killed half of my plants. Scuds still lived! Adding fish did nothing as there always were a few survivors.
> 
> Your other option might be to just gas them with co2. Generally when I get plants I throw them in a 5 gallon bucket with a cover on it. The cover has a small hole drilled where I run a co2 hose and I literally inject at such high flow that I cannot count the bubbles. I'll let it run overnight. Once you've dealt with scuds you refuse to get them again and will go through great lengths to avoid them like the plague (which they essentially are).





acitydweller said:


> a holistic approach without using chemicals is to dry the tank out completely. ive done this with mosses, driftwood and nano tanks where scuds scurried to the last droplets of water...


Breaking down the tank is probably the best idea. But I was hoping to avoid this as the tank is fairly new (around 1 year old) and it would be time consuming.


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## briscoe (Mar 29, 2013)

Thank you all for the answers, very helpful.


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## kkoch (Oct 8, 2012)

What's a Scud?


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## acitydweller (Dec 28, 2011)

If you are hoping to continue using the tank and avoid re-cycling, be extra stringent with taking everything out to a quarnatine tank, then slowly reintroduce to the original tank after dosing with algaefix... this is likely your best approach without compromising the biological layer in the substrate.


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## briscoe (Mar 29, 2013)

kkoch said:


> What's a Scud?


Scuds are tiny crustaceans that can get into your aquarium, usually by hitchhiking on plants. They make great live food for fish. But from what I understand, they can be harmful to shrimp, i.e. outcompeting shrimp for food, and possibly even killing/eating shrimp. Once they get into your tank, they're VERY hard to eradicate.












acitydweller said:


> If you are hoping to continue using the tank and avoid re-cycling, be extra stringent with taking everything out to a quarnatine tank, then slowly reintroduce to the original tank after dosing with algaefix... this is likely your best approach without compromising the biological layer in the substrate.


Thanks for the info. But to be honest, I don't have a quarantine tank big enough to handle all of the extra substrate. If I have to break the tank down, I'll have to completely start over and re-cycle.


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## acitydweller (Dec 28, 2011)

with scuds, you only need to clean about 1-1.5 inches of depth depending on the type of gravel and granual sizes. i would not suggest disturbing the deeper anaerobic layer.


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