Where to buy Hyalella azteca?

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Smertrios

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Jun 18, 2007
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USA
I have read numerous threads about how prolific the mexican scuds are in an aquarium. 1 saying there could be 100's in aquariums of about 10 gallons and another saying a 15 gallon tank could feed a whole fish room every week => Problem is "scuds" mostly refers to a genus and not necessarily the prolific kind which I am led to believe is Hyalella azteca.

So far I have found 2 websites selling this specific species. One has a webpage saying "out of stock due to recent demand" but when emailed asking about availability they say they no longer culture them. The other is $50 for 200 scuds + 2 day fedex shipping. The latter is a biological supplier that has the specific strain Hyalella azteca.

Aquabid has a seller of scuds plus shrimps or a marble crayfish for $39 but they have not replied back to me about what species of scuds they have for sale =<

Anyone help me out getting a culture without it costing me an arm and a leg?
 
I guess if the aquabid seller can't get back to me soon I will buy from the research critter place... I get a free t-shirt as a new customer from them => But pricey so going to get back to them and see if I get anywhere haggling and asking for the shirt LOL
 
Have you tried raising grammarus? They are easy to keep and multiply quickly under the right conditions. Also the self-cloning crayfish procambarus marmorkreb reproduces like crazy and makes good live food for fish.
 
Got a reply back saying they would sell 100 or $25.00 so I checked fedex 2 day shipping... a bit pricey so last step is to ask if they will ship priority USPS for around $13 (fedex is easily 3x more). Still no reply back from the aquabid seller.
 
Scuds is another name for gammarus I just want to be sure I get the smaller 1/4" kind that does well in an aquarium as some species are bigger and/or difficult to get large numbers of.
 
That was the toxicology critter supplier. I am still waiting for a reply back from them about using USPS instead of fedex.

Fedex quotes me over $50 for 2day shipping on a 10x10x10 box weighing 3 pounds (what they use for shipping). USPS medium sized priority flatrate box is about half that size (by cubic inches) and costs around $12 but its not what they normally use.

In anycase if I get a culture and it works out you could get a culture from me. Check www.diablodjinn.com thats a website URL I bought a few years ago and I've been using it mostly for email and a consistent place for files the whole time. A few days ago I thought I would try and setup a basic webpage and offer critters for sale.
 
I sent them an email in the AM yesterday and nothing back yet. It could be that it was friday and now the weekend so the search goes on.
 
If this place doesn't get back to me I will wait for warmer weather and take a trip to the platte river here and see what I can find. I remember seeing many small scud like shrimp in the moss and would not be surprised if its the critter I am looking for. Really dont like the idea of going out in the wild to get them, especially the platte, as my experience with animals taken from the water there leads me to believe its parasite city =< That said...

Been out to the river a few times and once years ago I placed a few traps to get crayfish. Ended up with a couple small crays, green sunfish, 2 large mouth bass, a bunch of fish that looked like small carp, 3 plains killifish and 2 stickelbacks. Brought the sunfish, carp, killi and stickelbacks home and put them in their own tank. A carp had hookworm all over it the others seemed ok. The poor stickelbacks and killifish all got white spots and died... did not have a lid for the tank and every single carp jumped out and died on the floor. The green sunfish got out and was dry to the touch I actually had to pry it off the floor with it loosing some finnage and scales that didnt come loose when I felt a little twitch in my hand (was only seconds from tossing in the trash thinking it must be dead). Put it back in the tank and as its skin softened up it was able to twitch on the bottom and then hours hours later it was swimming. Lived another 2 years then one day I tried some water conditioner and WHOA that triggered a parasite infection of white worm parasites they were sticking out of the fish. May have been there the whole time but the water treatment let them show themselves. Fish died a day later but for that type of fish, 4-1/2 years was not to horrible of a life span.

Needless to say I really would rather get a safer culture as field collecting is not something I want to do. I think I already talked myself out of doing it =>
 
Found another place but am hesitant to buy from them again. I ordered tubifex and when I got the bag it had a ton of what they said were duckweed roots but *maybe* 6 small worm like things that I could see and I don't believe they were tubifex. Also got a mosquito larva and cyclops. This is the problem I would have with ordering Hyalella Azteca from them... don't think I would get real mexican scuds or for that matter enough of them to get a culture going =< The price is right but not their quality from my experience with them. Not returning emails and ignoring the problem is how they dealt with me...

EDIT: in previous post I said "hookworm" but meant "anchor worm"
 
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