infested by gray shrimpy things

[surf city baby]

I've just been browsing this forum and have found it is worlds better than fish-forums.com - I posted a query there on Friday and still have had no replies. I hope for better luck here.

This is the post I put up in the other forum:

I have a 12-gallon Eclipse aquarium with two Mickey Mouse platys and two corydoras. I don't know when it happened but somehow I got at least one preggers gammarus in the net with a new fish from my LFS and BANG

Now my aquarium is infested with the little gray buggers. The water is almost always green, even the day after a water change. I'm replacing the filter and rinsing out the uptake tube with every water change. I don't want the gammarus!

I don't want to kill them but I don't know if their little crustacean lives are worth the effort it would take to collect them all & take them down to the pond.

Let's say I don't try to save them. Any suggestions on the easiest way to get rid of them? At this point the only way that I can see is to take the whole thing apart, wash the gravel & (plastic) plants or put in new, and wash out the tank, then start all over again.

Or maybe I should get a fish that will eat them all. I don't know much about such fish--would it eat my platys & corys?

Or--let's say I can't bear to kill these little rascals. Any thoughts on corraling them all? Will it ruin the little local pond if I put them out there?

I'll appreciate any advice anyone can offer. Thanks!

Oh yeah--I also have a snail problem. I can only guess a snail got in with a fish just as the gammarus did, and now there are scores of them. Maybe I'll ask for advice about getting rid of them in another thread.

 

[famman]

copper sulfate, as in 'Had a Snail' would be a start if you wanted to resort to chemical means. It would probably do in the snails and it might take out the gammarus?(sp) too.

Your 12 gallon is a little small for a snail eater, kuli loach or whatever.

Is your tank planted? Green water sounds like algea, sounds like phosphates in your tap water? If so clear water with some mulm from around the roots of a friends mature planted tank might bring in even more micro organisms to compete and predate. Maybee a few floating plants to compete with the algae.

good luck

 

[OrionGirl]

Please, please, do not release them into the local waterways. Not only is this probably illegal, it can destroy a habitat. Never ever take something from an aquarium and dump it in a local pond or stream.

Any copper based treatment should rid your tank of both snails and shrimp, but keep in mind that the tank will be copper tainted there-after. Both snails and scuds are only overwhelming in tanks where there is an overload of nutrients for them to eat--which could also be why you have green water. How often/what are you feeding? Adding a few live plants, and some water from a healthy planted tank might help as well. Reduce feedings to once every other day, no more than they eat in 1 minute. It's always easier to over feed than underfeed!

 

[surf city baby]

Thanks, oriongirl and famman. I especially appreciate the advice not to add anything to the pond. You'll be glad to know I didn't.

After asking a couple of people at work with fw aquariums, I wound up buying two clown loaches, on the advice that they'd eat snails. I thought they might eat the gammarus too, and they do. I still see the gammarus but not nearly as many, and after the last water change two days ago the water is still clear.

Now I have a tiger barb problem of my own creation and I'll start a new thread for that. This is one frustrated newbie. I don't like it that some creatures may die because of my mistakes.