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Harvesting scuds?

Canecorsonewt

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Hi i have some scuds. What is the best way to harvest/bait them. I don't now much about them just picked them up a month ago. I have tried cucumber i think they like the plants they live with more than cucumber. I have tried to take out some horn wort and java moss i keep with them. Than dip in water shake it but that's a mess. I'd rather not put that mess in with my larvae or juveniles. I picked up this culture of scuds it came with scuds, seed shrimp, daphina, tripods and small leeches. I dont want to get any leeches with my newts. Thats why i dont want to dump in all the mess. But the guy said his fish love the small leeches?
 

Chinadog

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Good question. I've been wondering the same thing about harvesting Asellus from my nature pond. At night there are thousands of them in the shallow areas, but they disappear very quickly if I try to net them, so I've been thinking about some kind of baited trap. Maybe a home made, scaled down minnow trap type thing would work? If I get around to making one I'll report back, unless anyone else has ideas?
 

dannyyyallenn

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So what I do with things like that is place a small plastic cup(I use an old betta cup) down on its side in the water. I put a smelly food like fish food or a dead worm in the way back of the cup and leave it there for an hour. After an hour the cup will be swarming with the little creepers. Simply lift the cup out of the water. Tip it up quickly and pull it out. Most of the animals will be hanging around the food. If you use something solid, like a worm, you can simply shake and remove it from the cup, leaving only the bugs behind. Unfortunately, unless you have an isolated culture, you'll end up collecting every type of scavenger. In my experience it's pretty easy to pick/suck leeches out of a collection of other critters, they're pretty prominent.
 

jewett

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I've not done this yet as my scud culture is wild caught so I am waiting for the "original" scuds to age out and die so I only feed their offspring (past threads on this forum have made me paranoid!), but I was planning on using aquarium filter floss. From what I have read, the scuds like this porous material to hide and eat in, so you place the floss and leave it for at least a day or so. To harvest you simply take out the floss and swirl it in a cup with water or directly in your aquarium, and the scuds swim out. Has anyone tried this? Does it not work? Sorry to post a hypothetical solution that is probably not at all helpful....

HJ
 

xxianxx

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Surprised you guys are having trouble harvesting them, I drag a net through my livefood tanks and get loads. I think the problem is population density, these guys are prolific if you culture them correctly idk about non uk species ( mines in the link) but mine do very well in daphnia tanks, they have a major population growth with axolotl egg casings though their regular diet is pond **** and trout pellets. Try and find out how to boost your cultures.
Water slaters - Freshwater Habitats TrustFreshwater Habitats Trust
 

dannyyyallenn

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Looks like the species you have are aquatic isopods. Not the same as the classic scud or amphipod.
 

xxianxx

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Good question. I've been wondering the same thing about harvesting Asellus from my nature pond. At night there are thousands of them in the shallow areas, but they disappear very quickly if I try to net them, so I've been thinking about some kind of baited trap. Maybe a home made, scaled down minnow trap type thing would work? If I get around to making one I'll report back, unless anyone else has ideas?

That's what I culture, they like hanging about in the stringy algae and weed, net it out, swish round in a bucket, remove the weed and you should get them. If you add American blackworm you can harvest them at the same time. Swirl the water round in a white tub so all the dirt and weed goes to the Center, the bugs then wander about on the clean bit, turkey baster them up, dodging the leeches and you can feed them off. That tub contains several hundred asellus, pile of blackworm, some bloodworm and nymphs, 5 mins work. After initial harvest leave for an hour, more blackworm will leave the weed and congregate on the outside of the tub making them easy to harvest. I have 2 x 5ft daphnia tanks, I harvest one daily like this, they are very productive.
 

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xxianxx

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15 mins latter, blackworm bailing from the weed
 

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Canecorsonewt

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Hi I found another way to collect scuds I do not have a good dense scud culture. But they never die out. I picked this up of eBay to get some planaria out of my scud tanks it worked on both. I put some fish flakes in it 48 hours later I got this. First time I did it I had planari/detritus worms and scuds after 24 hours. I picked up this worm trap for around $10
 

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Claughy

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Have you had any problems with the triops eating daphnia or anything else in that mix? I was looking at ordering daphnia eggs from Carolina biological supply and some of the commenters had issues with triop eggs being mixed in.
 

Canecorsonewt

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When i bought them i was told it had copepods and daphnia and tiny pink leaches. The leaches where detritus worms/planaria. There is tiny bugs like bbs in it i think i see a tails on them i dont know what they are exactly. I didn't think they did harm but i never thought about it. I have hade this culture for 6 months it's never crashed but wouldn't depend on it for only food source. The copepods aren't booming if i stuck 2 larvae in my culture they would wipe out the copepods in a day. I don't think they kill the scuds but i don't know for sure. :eek:
 

Claughy

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Ah okay, those don't sound like triops then, those would be a pretty decent size by six months. Where did you get your culture if you don't mind me asking?
 

Canecorsonewt

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I got one from aquabib.com over 250 for $14. With lots of detritus woms/planaria i wasn't told about. One off ebay 150 for $12 he isn't selling any know but came with hand full of coons tail copepods,daphnia,detritus worms. He adverised the worms as little pink leaches.
 

Canecorsonewt

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Hi again.
The way i find that is pretty clean and easy to harvest scuds is with java moss. I put a clean galf ball size of java moss in a clean area of my scud culture. Come back hours later or better the next day, you should have at least a hundred scuds in their depending on how good your culture is. I take the big ones and feed them to my adult n.v.Louisiana newts, they love them.

I do have scuds with two c orientals in a five gallon. They keep reproducing in their, i don't know how much the c orientals eat scuds. The scuds have eating a lot of my plants/most of my plants except java moss in my 5 gallon. But i cant notice much damage in my 10 gallon from scuds i think the adult n.v are keeping the scuds in check.
 
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