Scud Horde HELP

[Cowrabbit]

How can I get this scud horde under control so I can have plants again? In a planted 29 gallon running for 12 years. Usual inhabitants are 30 tiny exclamation point rasboras and 8 ancient male guppies, rabbit snails & bristlenose. I moved the bristlenose and rabbit snails out so I don’t have to feed sinking food. Only feeding frozen BBS, cyclops & daphnia. I did move over 10 cardinal tetras from my school of 70+ to help eat the scuds, but they’re not comfortable in this tank yet. I never see a scud during the day in the 70 cardinal tank. 

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated and thanks in advance!

The pictures  24 hours apart. At this rate I’m just feeding plant trimmings to scuds. 

Edited September 13, 2022 by Cowrabbit
Grammar

[modified lung]

That's a lot of scuds. If you reduce feeding, you might see less over time. In the short term, if you make them a shelter where they can hide from the fish, you can remove shelter and dump or rinse out the scuds every few days. An aquarium co-op coarse sponge filter works well for this. Or a deli container with some fresh veg and a mesh cover.

[The Killer of Fish]

There needs to be a “Holy Crap!” reaction image.  Dang that is a lot of scuds.  
Have you thought of not feeding at all?  Guppies will supposedly eat scuds, but if you are keeping them full they have no reason to look for other food.  Maybe your Rasboras will eat the small ones… if they are hungry.

Have any friends with Cichlids or Killifish?  I have read that they like to eat scuds.  

[Cowrabbit]

Thanks, I'll definitely try out the deli container! I've been manually getting what I can during water changes, lol my quails like to eat them. 

On 9/12/2022 at 5:45 PM, modified lung said:

That's a lot of scuds. If you reduce feeding, you might see less over time. In the short term, if you make them a shelter where they can hide from the fish, you can remove shelter and dump or rinse out the scuds every few days. An aquarium co-op coarse sponge filter works well for this. Or a deli container with some fresh veg and a mesh cover.

Holy Crap indeed, I get more than a few stuck to my arm like duckweed during water changes. I think you're right I'll try fasting the tank, everyone is quite plump! They might be trying their best to gorge on scuds. Forgot to mention this was a heavily fed snail / pleco breeding tank up until August. I am adding a lot of loquat leaves, so that's a definite food source for scuds. I'll give it another week, I was thinking of a scarlet badis or a peacock gudgeon. I don't understand how to lid🤔 so I can't get killifish. Thanks!  

On 9/12/2022 at 6:08 PM, The Killer of Fish said:

There needs to be a “Holy Crap!” reaction image.  Dang that is a lot of scuds.  
Have you thought of not feeding at all?  Guppies will supposedly eat scuds, but if you are keeping them full they have no reason to look for other food.  Maybe your Rasboras will eat the small ones… if they are hungry.

Have any friends with Cichlids or Killifish?  I have read that they like to eat scuds.  

[TOtrees]

Maybe throw in some young angelfish like 1-1.5” size. They eat big for their size and as a species they’re very persistent hunters. 
plus they sell well when you don’t need them any more. 
Or a friendly gourami(s) like honey or pearl. 

I agree with cutting waaaay back on feeding. You need the predators to be hungry. 
Or build a minnow trap type setup, with a funnel shaped entrance. You’ll catch more than scuds but you can return the bycatch easily enough. 

[Gannon]

I just wanted to say I've never seen anything liek this and I'm sorry youre struggling with this thats insane. Where do you think these came from?

[Cowrabbit]

These came as hitchhikers through plant swaps years ago, I remember being ecstatic about getting new critters. I also have freshwater limpets, tiny flat ramshorn, new zealand mudsnails besides the usual MTS and pond snail that came as hitchhikers. A good warning to quarantine/dip plants, 🤐 although I still won't do that.    

On 9/13/2022 at 7:31 AM, Gannon said:

I just wanted to say I've never seen anything liek this and I'm sorry youre struggling with this thats insane. Where do you think these came from?

Thanks for the suggestions TOtrees. Now thinking about it, I had a pack of sparkling gourami and dwarf neon rainbows for years and didn't have a scud imbalance. The rainbows dwindled down to one and I rehomed him to join another school. The last sparkler passed away after 4 years, seeing it go through senescence made me too sad and I've been steering away from gouramis. 

Now my biggest fish is the male guppies who are too busy dancing with themselves. It looks like a apocalyptical snow globe with scuds flying all around. I did witness a guppy chomp when a scud flew into its mouth. The cardinals went to town on scuds in 2 other tanks, 8 in a fluval flex 9g and 70+ in a 4 foot tank. I think if I shift 10 more cardinals to the 29g will make them feel more at home, but I worry about the tiny rasboras being over competed for food.   

On 9/13/2022 at 5:00 AM, TOtrees said:

Maybe throw in some young angelfish like 1-1.5” size. They eat big for their size and as a species they’re very persistent hunters. 
plus they sell well when you don’t need them any more. 
Or a friendly gourami(s) like honey or pearl. 

I agree with cutting waaaay back on feeding. You need the predators to be hungry. 
Or build a minnow trap type setup, with a funnel shaped entrance. You’ll catch more than scuds but you can return the bycatch easily enough. 

 

[TOtrees]

On 9/13/2022 at 12:49 PM, Cowrabbit said:

...I worry about the tiny rasboras being over competed for food. 

If you are feeding without good variety, and the specific foods you offer are better-sized for the tetras, this could be a problem, over a long time, maybe. 

But if the food is appropriately sized for the rasboras, and on the small side for the tetras, they'll do fine. I like bug bites community for this: i can crush the crumbles in my fingers and this gives a range of particle sizes, from what comes in the container right down to powder. The Xtreme nano pellets are also nice and small.

Thought exercise: let's say you're feeding the Xtreme nano, and that your rasboras and cardinals can both consume the same number of pellets per unit of time, say 1 pellet per 2 seconds. This isn't unreasonable bc the pellets are very small, and these fish species are similar in build, pace, etc. Let's say you put in a small amount of pellets, and they distribute evenly through the tank both horizontally and vertically. All the fish are scrambling around all over the joint. After 10 seconds everyone from both species has eaten 5 pellets each (okay fine math gurus it's 6 pellets each LOL). The rasboras just took in say 5% of their body mass, but the larger tetras only got 2% of their mass. The actual percent doesn't matter, just the relative differences. By tailoring the food to meet the rasboras needs and behavior, and limiting food quantities, the wee rasboras will have no trouble holding their own.

Where we run into problems is overfeeding: Playing this imaginary numbers game a bit more, let's say the rasboras get full and literally cannot stuff more in their mouth/stomach after 10 pellets, but your tetras can eat 20. Again assuming the RATE of pellet consumption is the same, the tetras will continue to feed twice as long as the rasboras. So feeding more favors the bigger fish.

If we change things up and imagine a pellet that tetras can eat faster than the rasboras (or a food that resides in the level of the tank where the tetras can dominate feeding), then again the tetras will get a disproportionate amount of food (eg a higher percent of their body weight), and over time the rasboras might suffer. 

So feeding a tiny food, in a limited quantity, will allow the rasboras to get better meals. 

BUT we're talking about ways to control your scuds. Both the rasboras and the cardinals would have difficulty with the bigger scuds, and those are the ones that will keep breeding and making more scuds. That's where your gouramis or angels come in, with their bigger mouth and bigger appetite. You want fish big enough to eat a full grown scud, but not big enough to nom the rasboras. If you add small angels to your tank, and you only feed a fine powder food, the rasboras will get plenty, but the angels will be hungry and start going after the scuds (in theory). Put in some blanched veg like spinach or zucchini to draw the scuds out, and give the fish a better chance. 

I have to sign off and return to real fish life world, not imaginary thought exercise world. 😛

[Cowrabbit]

On 9/13/2022 at 11:54 AM, TOtrees said:

If you are feeding without good variety, and the specific foods you offer are better-sized for the tetras, this could be a problem, over a long time, maybe. 

I have to sign off and return to real fish life world, not imaginary thought exercise world. 😛

Thank you for such a thorough answer and I love your thought exercise! I tried the Xtreme nano pellets (sinks too fast), krill flakes (fish are meh), and easy fry food (floats too long). Ohhhh I did order Bug Bites Tropical Formula for Small Fish, I'll give it an honest try. I like to feed foods that stay in the water column like live baby brine, frozen cyclops and frozen daphnia. I stopped feeding live baby brine cause the cardinals love it and won't eat other foods.  I think you're right, maybe I should be feeding them a formulated complete diet instead of candy all the time. 

On 9/13/2022 at 11:54 AM, TOtrees said:

BUT we're talking about ways to control your scuds. Both the rasboras and the cardinals would have difficulty with the bigger scuds, and those are the ones that will keep breeding and making more scuds. That's where your gouramis or angels come in, with their bigger mouth and bigger appetite. You want fish big enough to eat a full grown scud, but not big enough to nom the rasboras. If you add small angels to your tank, and you only feed a fine powder food, the rasboras will get plenty, but the angels will be hungry and start going after the scuds (in theory). Put in some blanched veg like spinach or zucchini to draw the scuds out, and give the fish a better chance. 

Yes, I'll try my best with the manual catching. Bigger fish will definitely help, I've got some emotional baggage to work through before getting bigger fish again. Especially angelfish, they are such begging puppies and happy to see you. Maybe I can hunt down some lepoldi angelfish that can go to my bigger tank. 

[Odd Duck]

On 9/13/2022 at 11:49 AM, Cowrabbit said:

A good warning to quarantine/dip plants, 🤐 although I still won't do that.

Have you seen the thread on reverse respiration?  This might be very helpful for future.

 

As far as excess scuds go, if you cut back feeding (I like that feeding limited amounts of fine foods aimed at the smallest fish from @TOtrees), and you have fish that will eat the scuds, they should come under control.  Even if the fish are only eating the young scuds, they will put a dent in the population if there are enough fish eating them.

Edited September 13, 2022 by Odd Duck

[Cowrabbit]

@Odd Duck Wow I didn't think it was that easy, The Quick-Guide is a treasure trove of information, omgosh how is it not behind a paywall! I should setup an empty beer keg for DIY seltzer water for future uses. If I wanted to eradicate scuds, I think I still need to remove fish and gas the whole tank since they're breeding from my canister filter.  I might do that when it's time to replace the tank in 2025 (I've been replacing tanks every 10 years). 

Meanwhile I've really upset the horde and stuffed their favorite Staurogyne Repens in plastic trap, video of upset horde. 

I caught this many from vacuuming.

These guys getting enrichment from bobbing for scuds. Usually I dry them out and the quails get easy snack. Scuds must be shrimp cause they turn pink after drying out 😅

Edited September 14, 2022 by Cowrabbit
Spelling

[redfish]

That is unbelievable you have that many in your tank. Crazy.

[The Killer of Fish]

You know if the Cardinals, Rasboras and Guppies start eating the small ones eventually the big breeding ones will die and there will be none to do the breeding... if the other fish eat enough of the small ones.

That is a lot of scuds in a bucket.  Oh.  They are a freshwater crustacean,  so they are like shrimp, and I read somewhere that they are sometimes called freshwater shrimp. 

[modified lung]

Btw, scuds are probably my biggest seller at 30-40 for $5. You might be able to get some local cash money for those.

[Cowrabbit]

Update, I’m happy to report the tank is no longer horror scud snow globe! The trap box was super effective first week. Getting diminished returns from the trap box daily.

Removed all leaf litter to eliminate food source. My poor ambulia is starting to grow again from being eaten to the stems.

Haven’t really fed the fish, they’re still very very fat. Although they do get baby brine snacks sometimes cause I’m feeding my pygmy corydora fry.

We’re getting there! Thank you everyone for you helpful tips! I might still have scuds for sale at the next local club meet. 

Edited September 22, 2022 by Cowrabbit

[K McZongo]

On 9/13/2022 at 3:20 PM, Cowrabbit said:

@Odd Duck Wow I didn't think it was that easy, The Quick-Guide is a treasure trove of information, omgosh how is it not behind a paywall! I should setup an empty beer keg for DIY seltzer water for future uses. If I wanted to eradicate scuds, I think I still need to remove fish and gas the whole tank since they're breeding from my canister filter.  I might do that when it's time to replace the tank in 2025 (I've been replacing tanks every 10 years). 

Meanwhile I've really upset the horde and stuffed their favorite Staurogyne Repens in plastic trap, video of upset horde. 

I caught this many from vacuuming.

These guys getting enrichment from bobbing for scuds. Usually I dry them out and the quails get easy snack. Scuds must be shrimp cause they turn pink after drying out 😅

Not 100% on topic. But Nice quails, been looking into getting some kind of fowl for the back yard. 

Lots of folks will probably be interested in a "clean" tank scud starter culture.

[Cowrabbit]

On 9/22/2022 at 6:57 PM, K McZongo said:

Not 100% on topic. But Nice quails, been looking into getting some kind of fowl for the back yard. 

Sorry late reply. I think button quails to aviaries is pygmy corydoras to aquariums. Sadly I’m waiting for these guys to kick the bucket so I can have chickens. They lay way too many tiny eggs and can’t free range and garden with me like chickens. Good luck with which ever fowl you get 😊 I highly recommend you get hatching eggs and incubate them yourself. It’s more time, effort & money but the chicks will bond with you for their lifetime. 
 

Here’s an album of a button quail I raised that you didn’t ask for https://imgur.com/gallery/59QgLJm

Here’s the egg-child now making happy sounds while being petted (sound up). He’s the only one in my flock that doesn’t mind being handled. 

https://imgur.com/a/40NxtNe

[CornAndCrawlers]

I intentionally have a tank with scuds and tons of guppy grass and frog bit but I havnt figured out how to harvest them. Do you have any links or descriptions for this plastic trap? 

[Cowrabbit]

@CornAndCrawlers

Here’s my trap design & in action. I used slate to weight it down, but I suggest smooth rocks cause scuds cling onto the slate. 
 

I did sell one batch of scuds, but there’s no visible scuds now. They’re still in the tank & get blown out of the filter every time I restart it.