Help! Hundreds of Scuds in Shrimp Tank

[EmmaFish]

I am breeding shrimp in a ten gallon tank; there are hundreds of scuds in this tank as well. There are still many baby shrimp in the tank as well, and as far as I can tell the scuds do not attack them. However, every single grain of soil in the tank is a scud; they are all over the decor, surfing up the walls, tangled in balls that fight over the shrimps food. They are an eyesore, and I worry that someday the tank may crash because of the sheer mass of them, or that the shrimp may stop breeding eventually because there are too many scuds. If there were no baby shrimp at the moment I would remove the adult shrimp and CO2 blast the entire thing, but unfortunately I do not know how to remove the scuds without harming the shrimp. Any advice is welcome.

[Guppysnail]

I remove the screen on my larger gravel vac. Often shrimp and scuds take the water slide ride to the bucket and are unharmed. I net them and return to appropriate tanks. 
Can you vacuum as many critters out as possible then sort through (painful slow annoying I know) and return only the shrimp to the tank? 

Edited February 25, 2023 by Guppysnail

[EmmaFish]

unfortunately I can't vacuum out the scuds; they dive into the cracks between the substrate! I would end up just sucking up the little shrimp instead 😓

[KittenFishMom]

If the scuds like the shrimp food, put some in the bottom of a long clear glass, at an angle on the bottom with the mouth a bit off the floor.  When there are a good number of scuds in the glass. clamp your net or hand over the mouth of the glass and lift ot out of the tank. Then sort as Guppy snail recommends.

I found scuds liked grabbing strips of plastic craft canvas dripped in muddy water. They wasn't anything else for them on to grab. It was how I got most of them out of the bucket of stream water. Might not work in a planted tank, but you could give it a try.

Edited February 25, 2023 by KittenFishMom

[EmmaFish]

Thank you! I actually have some planaria traps that might be useful for that, as the scuds I noticed love the bits of frozen food I was putting in the traps. 

[Procrypsis]

You will have a hard time removing scuds without nuking the tank. Everything that kills scuds will be even more effective at killing shrimps.

Planaria traps will not be effective. 

I would set up a separate tank and move the shrimp.

[knee]

I'd pick out the shrimp as best as I can and then put something in there to eat the scuds.

[EmmaFish]

Do the scuds pose any real danger to the tank? I have not seen them attack and/or eat baby shrimp, and I am fine with the number of shrimp I have and don't mind if the scuds accidentally pick off a few here and there. However, are they capable of reaching such numbers that the tank would crash?

[Procrypsis]

Scuds eat shrimp and just about any other creature they can grab ahold of. You may not see a difference for a while, but they will impact your shrump population. More scuds = less shrimp.

If you can keep the scud numbers low by regular culling, you may be able to live with them. I would move the shrimp and nuke the tank. Less work and better results IMO.

[PlaneFishGuy]

Any chance of adding some fish for a short while to knock them back?  No experience specifically with scuds with this just hate seeing the "nuke" option employed before diplomacy has a chance to work 🙂 

This would also allow you to keep the shrimp in the tank and avoid the hassle of re-homing them. 

Edited February 28, 2023 by PlaneFishGuy

[EmmaFish]

The only fish that would leave the shrimp alone are the pygmy corydoras and the ottocinclus fish. Unfortunately, the moment I introduced the pygmy corys to the tank, the scuds all dove for the gaps between the substrate and buried themselves deep, crushing the hope that the corys would ever be able to get to them. (the corys and ottos are also too peaceful and small mouthed and slow to catch the scuds) Also, the other fish that eat scuds (if I were to move the shrimp out) wouldn't be able to completely eliminate them. I nuked the tank several months ago, before I had shrimp, and I noticed a few survivors that had apparently gone into stasis because of the lack of oxygen, but were revived once I started adding water back in. I thought nothing of it at the time, and didn't know that literally hundreds of scuds would eventually spring from those several survivors!😅

[Cmike15]

I was looking into whether scuds were a good idea... Since i only have small fish, guppies are my current largest fish so the scuds probably would survive. It's confusing since i read pygmy sunfish and scarlet badis would eat them but i have shrimp so i wouldn't want any scuds to mix in with that tank.

 

On 2/28/2023 at 10:16 AM, EmmaFish said:

The only fish that would leave the shrimp alone are the pygmy corydoras and the ottocinclus fish. Unfortunately, the moment I introduced the pygmy corys to the tank, the scuds all dove for the gaps between the substrate and buried themselves deep, crushing the hope that the corys would ever be able to get to them. (the corys and ottos are also too peaceful and small mouthed and slow to catch the scuds) Also, the other fish that eat scuds (if I were to move the shrimp out) wouldn't be able to completely eliminate them. I nuked the tank several months ago, before I had shrimp, and I noticed a few survivors that had apparently gone into stasis because of the lack of oxygen, but were revived once I started adding water back in. I thought nothing of it at the time, and didn't know that literally hundreds of scuds would eventually spring from those several survivors!😅

are they a problem now? is your shrimp tank safe from the scuds at least. It seems you had a lot of scuds. 

On 2/28/2023 at 6:19 AM, Procrypsis said:

Scuds eat shrimp and just about any other creature they can grab ahold of. You may not see a difference for a while, but they will impact your shrump population. More scuds = less shrimp.

If you can keep the scud numbers low by regular culling

I read the scuds eat the same foods the shrimp eat so it would be a competition. any idea on what regular culling would be? a bigger fish maybe