Raising scuds

C

Canecorsonewt

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Cliff
Hi just want to say, you can raise scuds by the window in a vase with no filter or water changes. I have had these guys going for at lest 7 months in a vase. I add water when it gets low, to tell you the truth i have dumped a little coffee in it to. The guy i bought them from mentioned it, something about tannis cant say it helps. Very low maintenance feed newt pellets once every couple weeks and top of water thats it.

I dont use as food source just backup,its never crashed.
 
I was thinking about culturing some, because it seems like they're more hardy than daphnia. But I'm worried about my newts not eating them in time before they start eating up my plants. How's your experience with this?
 
They don't feed on your plants. They eat debris and dead plant material. I culture them in my turtle pond together with water louse (Asselus), but I've had great numbers of them thriving in my semi-aquatic gravel heap setups with T.verrucosus and C.e.popei. These stood by the window as well btw.
 
I think the ones we get in us or at lest the ones i have will eat your plants. I've only seen major damage from scuds in my 5 gallon, it has two very young c oriental in it. The scuds are thriving in there, my c oriental's seem to like white worms more than scuds.

But i have thrown at lest 500 scuds with my n.v.Louisiana newts, they are adults and they keep them in check in my 10 gallon. I dont notice much damage in the 10 gallon.
 
These are the suds I ordered of ebay
 

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Its more likely the plants aren't doing well and the scuds have started eating dying or unhealthy leaves. basically all amphipods are detritivores.
 
I've had them for a long time in one large tank with C.orientalis and then suddenly they all vanished within a couple of days. After that I've tried to culture them in newt tanks, but without any luck. I've got asselus in most tanks though.
 
I've tried to culture them in an old aquarium, but once in a while the entire population crashed. Since I'm keeping them with some duckweed I haven't had any fall backs though.
 
Thats funny i have had scuds in this vase for over 6 months no water changes just top it off. I thought if i could do it anyone could.lol
 

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Well, lucky for me I found a way eventually. Guess that not all methods work.
 
I've had problems with culturing them in larger aquariums. I only managed to succesful keep them in small containers. In my experience duckweed does well indeed.
 
When calculating a Biotic Index for a given water body or river, scuds are listed as semi-tolerant to pollutions, whereas asellus are listed as tolerant.
In most cases, scuds are present in streams or body waters with a small water flow.
 
AW: Raising scuds

If you want to breed scuds, maybe you could try Hyalella azteca instead of Gammarus pulex.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyalella_azteca
They are smaller than Gammmarus pulex and need higher temperature to breed but they are more tolerant to lower oxygene and worse water quality than G. pulex and they reproduce faster.

But as stanleyc is worried about the scuds eating up his plants, I can confirm that H. azteca eat almost ervery kind of plants. I often feed my H. azteca with plants from my other tanks.
Of course, how much they damage the plants in an aquarium depends on the amount of scuds in relation to other food sources in the tank. Compared to plants, they prefer flake food for fish, shrimp pellets and similar food. But even if they are fed enough other food, there is no warranty that they won't eat the plants.
 
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