# Seed Shrimp - Ostracods, Love em? Hate em?



## Danu Buntoro (May 26, 2018)

once the algae gone, it will eat your moss / plants 
seed shrimp needs some mineral preferably calcium


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## kushy04 (Mar 27, 2018)

Danu Buntoro said:


> once the algae gone, it will eat your moss / plants
> seed shrimp needs some mineral preferably calcium


I think you are referring to scuds, which are a different animal than seed shrimp... seed shrimp have no mouth parts, just cilia to filter feed.


edit:

scuds : http://www.flycraftangling.com/index.asp?p=123

seed shrimp : http://lifeinfreshwater.net/seed-shrimps-ostracoda/


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## auban (Jun 23, 2012)

that has been my experiences with some types of ostracods as well. some types are great for cleaning away algae and biofilms. others, not so much. if you end up with one of the vernal pool species, they will lay eggs all over the place, which can get to be as unsightly as the algae. for those species, i actually raise them as live food for some fish, mostly killifish. the vernal pool species dont reproduce very fast when water is left in the tank indefinitely, but they lay so many eggs that their population EXPLODES if you give them a wet dry cycle. 

here is a video of a vernal pool species doing its thing, after i got them to a dense culture and harvest some. this is the harvest:


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## kushy04 (Mar 27, 2018)

auban said:


> that has been my experiences with some types of ostracods as well. some types are great for cleaning away algae and biofilms...


Wow, those guys you have are monsters. I don't know what variety I have, but they are tiny, about 0.5mm max. Both of my tanks have these seed shrimp in them. My main tank experienced a population explosion followed by a population crash, I can still find the seed shrimp in my tank, but I have to look in the gravel to find them, I no longer see them swarming on my plants and in the corners of my tank.

So, any idea (resources?) how I would go about identifying what variety I have? I'm not familiar with any ostracod website or species database.


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## auban (Jun 23, 2012)

kushy04 said:


> Wow, those guys you have are monsters. I don't know what variety I have, but they are tiny, about 0.5mm max. Both of my tanks have these seed shrimp in them. My main tank experienced a population explosion followed by a population crash, I can still find the seed shrimp in my tank, but I have to look in the gravel to find them, I no longer see them swarming on my plants and in the corners of my tank.
> 
> So, any idea (resources?) how I would go about identifying what variety I have? I'm not familiar with any ostracod website or species database.


several years ago, i purchased this book: https://www.amazon.com/Pennaks-Freshwater-Invertebrates-United-States/dp/0471358371

it is helpful.

i also got my hands on every single dichotomous key i could find. most species of ostracod are not covered. for instance, when i was in highschool, i used an ostracod species to keep rose clippings set in water from rotting. the ostracods ate the dying material and kept fungus at bay. the result was a lot of rose clippings that grew roots while in water. i never figured out what the species was. i remember running into some blockade where i could not identify them any further, even though i had a microscope powerful enough to allow me to see their identifying characteristics. i have NO idea what the species is.

i would encourage you to keep a colony of your ostracods if you can. there is a lot that is not known about them, and each species seems to have a different way of doing its thing. if you can, put it in a jar or small tank aside the aquarium. just keep them alive. do not let them die until you know where they come from. you could be sitting on gold when it comes to feeding certain species of fish. or keeping a tank clean of algae. you never know. keep them. what you have is unique. if i were home more often, i would pay you for some of them. unfortunately, i am deployed most of every year. 

what can you do with them? what is their limits? if you find these things out, its possible you will be the only person on the planet that really knows anything about them. 

after all, nobody knew that you could raise ostracods as a viable fish food until i started doing it about a decade ago. its still not popular, but some people do use it to grow killifish nowadays.


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## kushy04 (Mar 27, 2018)

auban said:


> several years ago, i purchased this book...


 Cool, I figured there were a ton of species, I didn't realize how unstudied they were. If you decide you wanted specimens of my seed shrimp, feel free to PM me know or anytime in the future.

Would you happen to know their tank requirements? Would they require aeration if I had an emerged plant in a vase?

Thanks for letting me pick your brain and sparking an interest in ostracods.


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## auban (Jun 23, 2012)

kushy04 said:


> Cool, I figured there were a ton of species, I didn't realize how unstudied they were. If you decide you wanted specimens of my seed shrimp, feel free to PM me know or anytime in the future.
> 
> Would you happen to know their tank requirements? Would they require aeration if I had an emerged plant in a vase?
> 
> Thanks for letting me pick your brain and sparking an interest in ostracods.


i really dont know what they need, considering how their needs differ. the ones i was using with the rose clippings did not need aeration. i have not seen that species in over a decade. i have seen some that were similar to it, but i have not seen one that proliferates quite as much in a tiny stagnant pool of water. 

as for keeping yours, maybe i will try some day. as it is, i am either deployed or TDY for most of the year, every year. i don't have time for much these days.


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## Ashish koyande (Apr 19, 2021)

kushy04 said:


> So, I have a suspicion that the elimination of all algae from my main tank (which was set up in mid Feb. of this year) was because of seed shrimp. Was it coincidence that the population boom of seed shrimp in my tank coincided with the disappearance of algae in my tank? I don't know, according to resources online, they do eat algae or anything else that is organic and able to be filtered into their tiny shells. I eventually introduced a few tetras hoping they would eat the seed shrimp and they have, I still have no algae in my main tank and only see seed shrimp in or close to the gravel (a huge reduction of seed shrimp).
> 
> So... it is my suspicion that the seed shrimp decimated all the algae in my tank. I recently set up a 2.5 gallon nano planted tank. It's been running for about 2 weeks now, I started it with an already established sponge filter, ferts, great aeration, and tons of clippings that came from my main tank. This tank gets direct sunlight for a few hours in the morning (my nano tank is on the window sill of a north facing window) and also is sharing a 15W LED plant light with a succulent placed right next to the tank, it is on 24/7. Within days of setting up the tank, green haired algae and green/brown diatoms began taking over the moss, plants, and glass. I introduced 1 otto, 1 amano shrimp, and about 15 seed shrimp I caught from my main tank.
> 
> ...


i have simmilar experience, i set up moss only tank. three weeks later all tank walls were covered with diatoms and green spot algae but moss was growing rapidly. in 4th week i saw few seed shrimps (i dont know how they were introduced) but in 6th week i see population serge in seed shrimp colony and they eradicated diatoms and green spot like it was not there at all. till then moss was growing fine. from 7th week onward i observed my moss was reducing in volume specialy i could see bare braches (skeleton) of moss branches without leaves. in next 3 weeks moss was completly gone. thos raised my suspicion that seed shrimps after finiahing diatoms will go for moss. i decided to repeat this experiment with anubias only tank and seems like seed shrimps dont like taste of anubias. they just clean it. 

so my conclusion is seed shrimps are great with anubias and java ferns they keep them clean but for moss big no to seed shrimp.


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