Opinions on scuds/gammarus sp.

[Gourami Swami]

Hello,
I have a 4g planted nano tank that I am using to breed shrimp. I have had success so far, tank has only been up a little over a month and I have had all three of my females become berried, give birth, and now one is already berried again a week later. Tons of little yellow shrimps growing up now.
On one of the plants, I must have brought in some scuds. There are no fish in the tank, so now their population has absolutely exploded. They are on the walls, swimming through the soil, just everywhere.I am not a fan of them because it looks like the tank is full of bugs.
My conundrum is this- I can add some microrasboras which will eat the scuds, but the tradeoff is that they might also eat some shrimplets. Basically I want to know what you guys think about a scud infestation- are they harmful other than looking kind of gross? I have never dealt with them before, probably because I always have fish in my tanks. If they are harmless I may just let them be, to save my shrimplets- but if they can become problematic I would want to get rid of them.
Thoughts?

 

[wfex4]

Some people use them for algae control but they're not a particularly popular choice because they're "bugs". They should be harmless though

 

[jhook]

I agree, they're harmless. I had some hitch a ride on a plant in my aquarium. They multiplied extremely fast and were everywhere. I wasn't raising shrimp or fry so I simply put in some bigger fish and they ate all of the scuds. The fish never seemed happier than when they were able to chase their food.

 

[pescado209]

to bad your not closer . I'd love to take your scud infestations to start my scud breeding tank. :/

 

[Gourami Swami]

Okay, consensus seems to be that they won't harm anything. Thanks for the replies. I may still get some little fish to get rid of them, they hang out on the front pane of glass near the top of the water... very visibly. I guess I could catch them and feed them to my cichlids, but it almost seems like more work than it's worth.

 

[duanes]

I raised them in rain barrels and overhead, planted refugiums to use for live food. They would at times follow the current and overflow into the main cichlid tanks where they only lasted for a short time.
In rain barrels, they would appear in spring after all water in the barrel had frozen solid thru winter.
They help break down detritus in the refugiums, and planted sumps, I like them as a natural part of the system.

 

[Gourami Swami]

Thanks duanes, good info. Guess they can actually be beneficial. I am planning on getting 4 microrasboras, I am thinking they will keep the scud population low, but I'm sure they won't eliminate it, as I have about an inch of aquasoil and I can observe the gammarus scurrying around deep in the gravel.

 

[HarleyK]

All of my tanks have Hyalella azteca. Including my shrimp tank, and my way overstocked 40 gal. Not even a ton of barbs, livebearers, loaches and cories can eradicate them - and I don’t mind. I love biodiversity in my tanks!

 

[Mighty Wizard]

As people have mentioned they're largely beneficial little bugs. However, in very small tanks even scuds can have a noticeable impact on bioload, if there are many. So if the population does get truly huge, you might want to do something about it.

 

[pescado209]

As people have mentioned they're largely beneficial little bugs. However, in very small tanks even scuds can have a noticeable impact on bioload, if there are many. So if the population does get truly huge, you might want to do something about it.

define small tank?. is a 40g breeder planted tank with tons of cherry shrimp too small?
I was planning on a 20g scud tank to feed my fish. scoop them out freeze them and feed them.that way no uneaten scruds would breed and infest my other tanks ( 75g + 150g +20g)