Gammarus (Scuds)

[olivia newt]

Does anyone have experience culturing gammarus? I found a ton in a forest stream not far from my house. I have two tubs set up. One with and without aeration.

They all seems to be doing well. I fed them triops food. What does everyone else feed them? Any tips would be a help.

 

[Azhael]

If you can culture them outdoors it seems to work best. A large bin with a good layer of leave litter and debris should do well.
Indoors it´s tricky. Aeration seems to be very important and if oxygen levels drops they die in mass.
There are a couple of threads discussing gammarids, a search should yield some results.
Beware of wild gammarus as they are vectors for several types of parasite.

 

[SpaceCadetHayde]

I've never had much luck culturing them by themselves but they've done well in two Walstad method tanks I have set-up. I got 100 gammarus that were cultured in a fishless outdoor pond off of eBay and I've probably got 100+ adults in both of the tanks they're established in. They seem to stick to the java moss and moss balls.

 

[SludgeMunkey]

I culture mine in the same bins as my daphnia. In fact, as a result of my recent daphnia experimentation, the added rotting organic material has resulted in an explosion of scuds. This is a good thing, as aquatic arthropods are the preferred food of a number of the species I am working with. Axolotls( any over a half inch long) ignore them, but everyone else goes to town.

I find about two to three inches of "muck" with dead leaves and straw supports them best. I also find they like to mate in the duckweed and java moss, so have lots of that in there.

Took me a year to get a stable, producing series of cultures.

 

[Azhael]

Johnny, if you can, please take pictures of your bins.

I should mention that there´s always the possibility of culturing Hyalella azteca which apparently does well indoors in simple conditions, unlike most other gammarids. I know i´d like to get my hands on some of those...

 

[SludgeMunkey]

Johnny, if you can, please take pictures of your bins.

I should mention that there´s always the possibility of culturing Hyalella azteca which apparently does well indoors in simple conditions, unlike most other gammarids. I know i´d like to get my hands on some of those...

Will do. Finished repairs on my camera. Parents in town, so it will be a few days, but I will get some up of the whole operation.

I'll be dead honest with you, I have no idea which species they are. They came in with some Asellus aquaticus two years back. I failed miserably with the Asellus, but these gammarids filled in the gap pretty well.

Given my successes with arthropod culturing over the last year or so, I plan to try out Asselus again, after I finish up with my current experimentation with fairy, clam and tadpole shrimp.


I appears that once again, the "lazy hillbilly" ignore the culture method does best.

 

[Azhael]

Cheers!
I tried Rivulogammarus pulex and A.aquaticus and failed misserably with both. Only a few Asellus survived in my dobrogicus tank (i´m still baffled anything survived the allmighty four newts of doom) but they seem to be gone now.
I´m definitely trying again, though. Like you, Johnny, i think the future is in culturing crustaceans
Oh, you´ve got a PM.

 

[olivia newt]

Thanks for your help everyone. I will add that to the tubs.

The two times i've gotten daphnia they all died within says. lol The first time I tried to culture asellus was a success...but i've never been able to replicate that success again...

Will do. Finished repairs on my camera. Parents in town, so it will be a few days, but I will get some up of the whole operation.

I'll be dead honest with you, I have no idea which species they are. They came in with some Asellus aquaticus two years back. I failed miserably with the Asellus, but these gammarids filled in the gap pretty well.

Given my successes with arthropod culturing over the last year or so, I plan to try out Asselus again, after I finish up with my current experimentation with fairy, clam and tadpole shrimp.


I appears that once again, the "lazy hillbilly" ignore the culture method does best.

 

[ed_moyer]

As, Johnny said I culture them in the set it an forget tub set-ups!!! I raise mine indoors because it no fun trying to get them from something ice covered,when ya need them the most!!

 

[SludgeMunkey]

As, Johnny said I culture them in the set it an forget tub set-ups!!! I raise mine indoors because it no fun trying to get them from something ice covered,when ya need them the most!!

And note, I learned this entire concept from Ed and Justin.

 

[olivia newt]

Alright i'll forget the tubs for a while. Sounds a lot easier anyway.

 

[Coastal Groovin]

I'm going to tell a secret here. Take 4 pieces of 3ft long x 1ft wide Luan plywood. It's the really thin stuff. Lay the first peice down and along the two oppisite 3 foot edges lay down pop cycle sticks along the edges Leave 2-3 inches between each stick. Spread out some dry leaves about a dozen. Do this three times. Now you have a nice little stack. Take a screw gun and put some 1/2 screws along the edges, about 8 each side. Take it to a lake and sink it down into 6-12 inches of water and cover it with a bunch of rocks. Cover 3/4 of it. So it doesn't float away. Come back 4 weeks later. There will be 200-400 of those little suckers in there. Just put it in a 5 gallon bucket and pour water through the wood to flush the little suckers out. So much better than having to raise them.

 

[Azhael]

Yeah, but so much more risky. It all depends on the level of risk one is comfortable taking, and some always exists with wild collected foods, but i´d say snails and gammarids are at the top of things to be careful with.

 

[SludgeMunkey]

Here are some of my indoor tubs. My outdoor tubs are empty, aestivating, frozen over as part of that ongoing experiment.

As you can see I am playing with lighting. One tub uses a standard freshwater aquarium tube, the other an off the shelf plant grow light. I find that leaving the lights on 24 hours a day works best indoors. The duckweed, while annoying, makes a big difference in the stability of the water chemistry.

 

[SludgeMunkey]

Yeah, but so much more risky. It all depends on the level of risk one is comfortable taking, and some always exists with wild collected foods, but i´d say snails and gammarids are at the top of things to be careful with.

Agreed, especially when controlled, cultured stock is available inexpensively online from many sources.

 

[kettering bloke]

This year I have at last cracked for me the gammarus breeding problem. These are the european gammarus pulex. They seem to do best with well planted shallow water for a good gas tranfer kept very cool to allow maximum O2 content and so hard and full of disolved lime that Tufa will start to be deposited . The best plants seem to be water cress and elodea but I also have duck weed. If they get at all warm all the bubbles in the world wont save them. They increase by about 10 per cent a month so far so good . I still have not found a good way to post them. Regards KB

 

[Coastal Groovin]

Yeah, but so much more risky. It all depends on the level of risk one is comfortable taking, and some always exists with wild collected foods, but i´d say snails and gammarids are at the top of things to be careful with.

That is true but how do you streilize the starter culture you begin with? After you add the scuds, duck weeds, and other plants what is any different that catching them from a clean lake or stream?

 

[kettering bloke]

Very True but often many people cant get a good fresh clean supply . I have to walk for an hour to get a supply and to nip down to the green house and catch one or two every day is much better for me.It also means you can gut load them if your into that. Also after a few generations you will have selected a strain better able to survive and breed in a tank enviroment regards KB

 

[Azhael]

Well, if you culture them, then you break the cycle with parasites that just use them as vectors. New generations of scuds would in principle be "clean" simply because the parasite doesn´t have access to the final host and the cycle can´t start again.
However, as Johnny says, there is the option of controlled culture starters, which is preferable any time for the paranoid keeper

 

[Coastal Groovin]

What diseases do scuds carry?