Haven't posted in a wile so thought I'd share this
So I have a 20H dedicated to cherry shrimp. I set this up because my cherry shrimp population in a planted 10g seemed stagnant and I figured it was because of the fish that were in the tank were eating the shrimplets.
Well somewhere along the way I unintentionally introduced a few scuds (fresh water amphipod) into the shrimp tank. I though nothing of it and figured another invert couldn't hurt.
Boy was I wrong. These guys breed faster than guppies and rabits combined... by a long shot and I noticed they were probably out competing my cherry shrimp because the cherry population seemed to hit a stagnation point.
I figured the best way to get rid of them was to suck them out when I did water changes. So I would sit there with an airline tube with a rigid tube attached to the end and try to get as many as I could.
Now just imagine how long a 5gal bucket would take to fill with just an airline hose…
I got plenty of the guys though. I would have at least 150+ every time I did this. But it didn’t seam to help to the extent I was hoping, and I was getting tired of spending all that time bent over with and airline tube.
My solution was to let someone else to the dirty work for me… GUPPIES! I threw in 3 adults and about 4 medium sized juveniles. came back 30 min later and all the juves had nice round puffed out bellies and most of the scuds I had seen before were in hiding. Each day that goes by I see less and less of them so hopefully the guppies are doing there job. And the juvenile guppies are real trackers too. They will look in every nook and cranny for the scuds.
The only down side is that they, the guppies, are indiscriminant. Whatever can fit in their mouths they’ll eat. So my shrimplets are going to be collateral damage but the adults are too big for the guppies to eat so they should make it.
I’ll leave the guppies in for at least a month and feed them sparingly every so often in order to keep their appetite for scuds at its optimum. Then I’ll take them out and let the shrimp population rebound while keeping an eye out for the scuds.
So I have a 20H dedicated to cherry shrimp. I set this up because my cherry shrimp population in a planted 10g seemed stagnant and I figured it was because of the fish that were in the tank were eating the shrimplets.
Well somewhere along the way I unintentionally introduced a few scuds (fresh water amphipod) into the shrimp tank. I though nothing of it and figured another invert couldn't hurt.
Boy was I wrong. These guys breed faster than guppies and rabits combined... by a long shot and I noticed they were probably out competing my cherry shrimp because the cherry population seemed to hit a stagnation point.
I figured the best way to get rid of them was to suck them out when I did water changes. So I would sit there with an airline tube with a rigid tube attached to the end and try to get as many as I could.
Now just imagine how long a 5gal bucket would take to fill with just an airline hose…
I got plenty of the guys though. I would have at least 150+ every time I did this. But it didn’t seam to help to the extent I was hoping, and I was getting tired of spending all that time bent over with and airline tube.
My solution was to let someone else to the dirty work for me… GUPPIES! I threw in 3 adults and about 4 medium sized juveniles. came back 30 min later and all the juves had nice round puffed out bellies and most of the scuds I had seen before were in hiding. Each day that goes by I see less and less of them so hopefully the guppies are doing there job. And the juvenile guppies are real trackers too. They will look in every nook and cranny for the scuds.
The only down side is that they, the guppies, are indiscriminant. Whatever can fit in their mouths they’ll eat. So my shrimplets are going to be collateral damage but the adults are too big for the guppies to eat so they should make it.
I’ll leave the guppies in for at least a month and feed them sparingly every so often in order to keep their appetite for scuds at its optimum. Then I’ll take them out and let the shrimp population rebound while keeping an eye out for the scuds.
