Scuds LOVE frozen bloodworms !!! Who Knew ?

[KittenFishMom]

I was giving all my tanks some frozen bloodworms this evening when all of a sudden a scud in the betta tank grabbed a bloodworm and was off like a shot. I was so startled, I thought in was a small fish. (Our scuds are big.)

I thought maybe the scud was confused, so I dropped a few bloodworms in one of my scud tanks. The crowd went wild. They loved them. Before long it looked like most scuds in the tank were swimming around hugging a hunk of bloodworm. I have been feeding the scuds hornwort and chunks of pumpkin and banana. Now and then I give them a bit of fish food. I wasn't impressed with the rate at which they were multiplying. I am eager to see if bloodworms will help.

The fish in my native tank love scuds. They spend long periods, staying very still in the water, staring at rocks waiting for a scud to appear. At first I thought maybe the fish were confused, or depressed until I saw one catch a scud.

Anyone else have interesting food they feed their scuds?

[Native Keeper]

I'll have to remember this!

I'm getting a 5 gallon from my grandfather, and I plan on making it a native invert tank, with aquatic isopods, amphipods, and pond snails, as well as any other peaceful inverts I can collect. Thx for the info!

[KittenFishMom]

crayfish are much more peaceful than they look.  I had a lot on my 120 tank cleaning up all the odds and ends.   They do need a source of air.

If you use minnow traps to catch things, I recommend putting your bait in a knee high stocking, That way it doesn't get washed away, or eaten so quickly.  Put the bait in the toe, then make a loop by folding the top over and tying a knot. put the rope for the trap through the loop and stick the baited toe in the tarp and clip the trap shut with the clip at the end of the rope. I caught a lot of snails and crayfish in my minnow traps, as well as fish and mud puppies and a few water snakes.

[Native Keeper]

Well, I want to get things that can live in the 5 gallon forever, and all the crawfish here get too big for that. 

I tend to just scoop up clumps of algae and pick out whatever i can find in it. I also have better luck at night by stunning them with bright light. 

I'll make sure to remember that tip, thx!

[Odd Duck]

Scuds will eat about anything they can get, or overpower, including baby shrimplets.

On the other hand, they are certainly a valuable food source for most fish.  I’ve made scud refugiums to spread around to different tanks thanks to suggestions by someone here, was it @Guppysnail? They’re in my heaviest scud culture tanks right now getting seeded with scuds.  They’ll go in with pea puffers, cories, and Bettas, then whomever else I think might need ongoing supplementation.

[Torrey]

Yes, scuds also love live blackworms, brine shrimp, dehydrated blood worms, and any endler baby that doesn't swim away fast enough (pretty sure something was wrong with the endler baby).

The really large, darker scuds grow better on omnivore diet (Repashy, frozen, or live).

The smaller white variety are primarily vegetarian, and will clean up a snail that has died, but won't kill snails (I have not caught the larger omnivores killing snails, either.)

The endlers love to snack on young scuds... up until a big one comes swimming straight at them😳

[Guppysnail]

On 1/15/2022 at 12:35 AM, Odd Duck said:

Scuds will eat about anything they can get, or overpower, including baby shrimplets.

On the other hand, they are certainly a valuable food source for most fish.  I’ve made scud refugiums to spread around to different tanks thanks to suggestions by someone here, was it @Guppysnail? They’re in my heaviest scud culture tanks right now getting seeded with scuds.  They’ll go in with pea puffers, cories, and Bettas, then whomever else I think might need ongoing supplementation.

This is a fabulous idea but it was not mine. All my live food cultures were terrestrial for my frog and dragon. 

[KittenFishMom]

On 1/15/2022 at 12:35 AM, Odd Duck said:

I’ve made scud refugiums to spread around to different tanks thanks to suggestions by someone here, was it @Guppysnail? They’re in my heaviest scud culture tanks right now getting seeded with scuds.  They’ll go in with pea puffers, cories, and Bettas, then whomever else I think might need ongoing supplementation.

@Odd DuckHow do you make a scud refugium? I put some large rocks that the fish cannot move over gavel and pebbles to give the scuds a safe place to live, so the corys and catfish do not wipe them out completely.

[KittenFishMom]

On 1/15/2022 at 12:45 AM, Torrey said:

Yes, scuds also love live blackworms, brine shrimp, dehydrated blood worms, and any endler baby that doesn't swim away fast enough (pretty sure something was wrong with the endler baby).

The really large, darker scuds grow better on omnivore diet (Repashy, frozen, or live).

I have the large dark scuds.

I have been trying to find live blackworms. Where do you get them? I called the 3 pet stores that carry fish. They were not familiar with them.

I'm going to start looking for Repashy.

 

[eatyourpeas]

They'll eat anything. Mine love crab pellets!

 

[Torrey]

On 1/15/2022 at 9:23 AM, KittenFishMom said:

I have the large dark scuds.

I have been trying to find live blackworms. Where do you get them? I called the 3 pet stores that carry fish. They were not familiar with them.

I'm going to start looking for Repashy.

 

Carolina Biological Supply generally has them, and my lfs orders them by the pound when I start a new scape.

[KittenFishMom]

Thanks !

[Odd Duck]

On 1/15/2022 at 5:37 AM, Guppysnail said:

This is a fabulous idea but it was not mine. All my live food cultures were terrestrial for my frog and dragon. 

I used plastic containers with lids (some had snails shipped in them, some were tissue culture cups, I do love to upcycle).  I cut a large opening in the tops on each one but left a flat area to adhere silicone.  Then I cut plastic craft mesh bigger than the hole so it would overlap and I embedded it into a bead of silicone and smoothed silicone over the mesh at the margins.  I put blanched leaves into each container and put them in the tank.  They all floated.  I put pebbles into the containers to sink them, they sat crazy crooked.  I added more pebbles.  They sit better, now.  I have some purposely on their side to collect more scuds.

I have one of the 2 bigger ones in with my pea puffer main tank and plan to put smaller ones into some of my small display tanks.  The other larger one that’s still collecting and building population will go into the laser Cory breeding tank, but I’ve got to clear out some plants since it’s too packed right now.

I meant to take pics, but forgot.  I’ll see if I can get pics when I move them, but they’re pretty simple.  If they work for me, I’ll make more for other small, grow out tanks.

[Odd Duck]

@Guppysnail I figured out who made the suggestion and gave me the idea for the scud refugium.  It was @Torrey.  I remembered making a joke about making jewelry box for scuds and a search for “jewelry” got me to this.  It’s even on my own thread!  😂 😆 🤣 

 

[KittenFishMom]

@Odd Duck Do you have any photos?

[Odd Duck]

On 1/15/2022 at 11:03 PM, KittenFishMom said:

@Odd Duck Do you have any photos?

No, I meant to take pics, but I always tend to get too involved in the doing part and I forget to take photos.  I’ll try to remember to take photos when I move them to their destination tanks.

[KittenFishMom]

@Odd Duck Well, I decided to take a stab at making some scud refugiums. I used 2 small cups that wax worms came in from PetSmart. I cut a hole big enough for scuds to swim through, but not big enough for fish to stick there heads in. I filled them half full with pebbles, put in a bunch of hornwort and a pinch of Xtreme floating pellets that my fish are not interested in and put the caps back on. I have them in 2 of my scud tanks.

How long do you think it will take for the scuds to settle into these homes? I would like to put one in my native tanks, because I think the fish are eating the scuds faster than the scuds can reproduce. I just don't want to rush them. I don't want to bother the scuds by moving and opening the cups and causing the scuds to move out.

What do you recommend?

P.S. I am trying to catch all the scuds living in one of my slop buckets from vacuuming a tank. They keep hiding under the dead scuds and crud. Every time I think I have them all, another 3 start swimming around. 

[Odd Duck]

On 1/17/2022 at 5:42 PM, KittenFishMom said:

@Odd Duck Well, I decided to take a stab at making some scud refugiums. I used 2 small cups that wax worms came in from PetSmart. I cut a hole big enough for scuds to swim through, but not big enough for fish to stick there heads in. I filled them half full with pebbles, put in a bunch of hornwort and a pinch of Xtreme floating pellets that my fish are not interested in and put the caps back on. I have them in 2 of my scud tanks.

How long do you think it will take for the scuds to settle into these homes? I would like to put one in my native tanks, because I think the fish are eating the scuds faster than the scuds can reproduce. I just don't want to rush them. I don't want to bother the scuds by moving and opening the cups and causing the scuds to move out.

What do you recommend?

P.S. I am trying to catch all the scuds living in one of my slop buckets from vacuuming a tank. They keep hiding under the dead scuds and crud. Every time I think I have them all, another 3 start swimming around. 

I don’t know, it’s my first time for trying this.  Maybe @Torreywill be able to give us a better idea.  I suspect it has a lot to do with how many scuds are in the supply tank, how inviting the bait is, and how well the adult scuds can fit into the container.  When I lifted the first one out, I held it level to keep the water and scuds inside.

[Torrey]

@Odd Duck & @KittenFishMom I keep scuds in 2 different drink containers so I can open the spout and move the scuds to tanks.

This is the glass container. I can't get my phone camera to focus on the *inside* This is a 2 gallon jar with a UGF. Plastic "bio balls" are under a cut to fit plastic canvas mesh, which is capped with an inch of black gravel.

The lava rock is glued together as an arch, and supports plants (Bacopa caroliniana & pothos are the only plants that survived my inability to properly service the tank, lol)

It desperately needs the front glass cleaned, as dust algae has covered it while my spouse was helping me with the critters since Thanksgiving. The scuds love to eat the biofilm on the bio balls, and will breed in the bottom portion. The airlift tube keeps enough water cycling down through the bio balls and up the airlift tube that the only thing I have to do is add a wondershell each quarter, and I keep plants in a pot in the top of the tank, growing pothos, or herbs, or whatever I am in the mood for, and the plants root in more lava rocks in the pot.

I lift the pot every other day, and feed the scuds plant cuttings, fish food, and flowers I dead headed.

If I turn the spigot, I get close to 100 scuds in a betta cup, so enough to go feed the fish and more than enough to seed a new tank. These scuds are very pale and prefer decomposing flowers and plant trimmings to the majority of the fish food. 

This is a 5 gallon drink dispenser. Again, the bottom has bio balls and then a cut to size plastic canvas mesh creates the UGF. Instead of an airstone, this one has a pond pump that pushes water up into the planter on top.

This planter is made of the plastic canvas, though.

These are the larger, darker colored scuds, and they love the bloodworms, blackworms, and occasional pond snail if they can swarm one together. 

The rocks hold down the canvas and the bio balls, and keep the water pretty hard. The scuds in here will eat almost anything, except the roots of the philodendron. 

All I have to do is open the spigot, pour the water through a coffee strainer, and go feed scuds to the various fish that get a kick out of chasing prey. These scuds max size is the length of the body of a male endler.

They replicate in direct proportion to how much you feed them. They are more forgiving of water quality than any of my other scuds, and are also stronger swimmers. We actually keep the 5 gallon in the living room to listen to the sounds of the waterfall in the tank.

(All of my tanks need cleaning, and all but this tank tested 0 ammonia,  0 nitrites, and 0 nitrates despite my negligence. This one has 40 ppm nitrates)

[KittenFishMom]

I know what my next project is ! These photos are very helpful !

[Odd Duck]

So elaborately simple!  Clever plan and design making harvest so simple!  Nicely done!