Glad you liked it, thanks for watching and commenting

Thanks! Should have a couple more up by Monday

if you've got fish that are large enough to do red worms, smaller roaches work really well too. My jacks adore surinam roaches, which aren't nearly as gross as a lot of others are.

Exactly! Unfortunately I don't see many interesting in my endlers to eat seed shrimps.

Yeah, I imagine they'd leave a taste you'd never get rid of.

Yeah, people seem to sell everything as gammarus. I've ordered "gammarus pulex" three times from different sellers around the US and been sent hyalella azteca all three times (the main difference as far as I'm concerned is the hyalella reach about 0.25 inches, while the gammarus reach around 0.8 inches) I'd just catch some gammarus, but in New Mexico all the gammarus species are "critically endangered" so that's out.

@@MischiefandFins Hi there. Great information you gave us. You mentioned that gammarus are "critically endangered" so collecting them in the wild is out. My thought is, without encouraging you to break any laws- Why not go out and collect a handful, and then try to culture them with the intent of releasing many back into the wild? Like many endangered species, I believe some their best protection is to have human breeders ensuring their genes continue. What happens if one day the critically endangered species is thought to have become extinct, like the Imperial Woodpecker? I for one sure wish some collector had a backyard sanctuary ensuring their survival.

@@Rick-the-Swift Too bad nobody did this with Syncaris pasadenae 😭 Still not too late for Syncaris pacifica.

haha, wow!

Yeah, I used to catch these things with old corn cobs in the creek behind our house when we lived on the east coast. Fun little critters, way more interesting to watch than brine shrimp. My assistant spends a huge amount of the day watching them.

I was also observing them in mountain streams when we made family trips and I was mesmerized by them. I tried to bring them home too but without proper equipments they died. Now as an adult, I started the hobby because of them, originally I only bought fish for biodiversity, to be the shrimps' company in the ecosystem that I created.

so you were spreading possible different species around... Guys... Dont do this....

I haven't had any luck with keeping them together at all. I've tried to seed this tank with blackworms a few times, and they just seem to disappear. I suspect these guys just starve the blackworms out.

My scuds actually started eating the Lubricus variegatus. They will turn predatory for reasons I'm not aware of. They also will predate on snail eggs. I ended up with no remaining blackworms. This is in a 40 gallon breeder with just crustaceans and invertebrates.

I've heard of people doing both, but I suspect it depends on the species. Mine will eat pretty much anything, so there may be some issues with eating eggs

Sorry, maybe I misspoke in the video? It won't stop algae growth at all, it just picks up the crap that makes the water too murky to see clearly in indoor tanks. I feed mine vegetables and sow cubes, and don't think about algae growth much.

Most betta will happily eat them, I've only ever heard of two people who had betta that ignored them (likely due to eye scale issues).

White, brown, yellow, or pink hues indicate parasites, but I don't really know enough about them to say whether any given color is fish safe or not, though I'd guess "not" since otherwise there's no real reason to discolor the host. I generally just say "avoid anything with odd colors" as a general rule for little critters like this.

John Zimm they're generally eaten pretty quickly. I have a 3 foot deep tank that's basically solid jungle val for the bottom 2 feet of the tank, and even there they don't survive being hunted. You'd have to have a pretty massive tank with loads of cover to really expect a breeding population with fish present I'd just go for a plastic tub or something if you don't like the idea of setting up another tank

I use a filter because I prefer to squeeze out a sponge once every couple months over trying to use a hose to suck up the crap the builds up on the bottom. That allows me to use a standard tube with a bit of cloth over it for water changes without having to worry about sucking any out of the tank, since I no longer have to worry about poop. Also, I prefer a clear tank so that I can easily monitor their numbers and make adjustments if they seem to be doing poorly.

@@MischiefandFins makes sense. Though I thought about basically decanting them. But anyway, there are probably a lot of ways to do this. In contrast to a lot of other live food species, scuds live 120 days, and they take up to four weeks to mature, so they require a more longterm setup than waterfleas etc

You might find it hard to keep the black worms fed without adding so much food that the water fouls, but otherwise I wouldn't expect any major problems as long as you aren't planning to grow a ton of them

@@MischiefandFins Thanks for your advice! I only have two aquariums, so not a lot of fish to feed. Since both critters can live in basically the same setup, sounds like I could switch over pretty easily anytime.

@@amym.4823 The biggest issue I see with keeping them together is just water depth. I have really bad luck keeping blackworms in water deeper than 2-3 inches, but that's probably because my room temperature is towards the high end of their tolerable range

Gosia Okoji my experience is that the fish eat them all. I've heard a couple people say they have betta that don't eat them all, just because they aren't always fast enough to catch them, but my betta eats all of them I add to his tank. Do you know anyone else that keeps fish? Most people I know are happy to take some in a bag for their fish

Angelfish Unlimited no, unfortunately I don't know anyone with fish :( Thank you for the reply though :) One last question, do you know of a way to control their population? Like, Will less amount of food work with them breeding less?

Restricting food will restrict population, sure. My local pet store also used to take cultures from me to sell to other people, so you might be able to do that. I get free supplies in exchange. I haven't really run up on any massive issues, my main colony is still in a 20 gallon tank, and whether I slim the numbers or not doesn't seem to matter a whole lot, I've never run into a large die off from overpopulation or anything. I've found they don't really eat java moss all the way down, so it seems a good plant if you're just doing a decorative tank (they'll eat the fluff, but not the base threads, so it still gives them a good support network to live on). They don't seem to like jungle val very much, so it might survive with them even with restricted food. They also don't seem to want to eat buce, I've got some bits I threw in months ago to get them to clean the algae off and forgot about, and it's still good as new. But it probably varies by species, so I wouldn't spend much on live decorations until you test.

With my experience they won't eat that unless they're like babies

I keep them as pets ... they sit on my counter in a 5 gallon aquarium I have rocks on the bottom and a small sponge filter in the corner and a piece of wood. I feed them sweet potato, carrots, cauliflower pretty much anything. I don't think they will over run your tank. I have close to 3000 and you would never know it. Tonight I have divided mine into 2 groups one group of about 2000 going into a 10 gallon and the other 1000 going into a 1 gallon jar. This time I have added a pothos plant to the set up.

If they're still in the original lake or river water, it could be losing oxygen. An air stone might help, or a container with a larger top. Gross water tends to form a film. If you aren't using lake/river water, it could be too different from what they're used to, and you may need to change it slowly. I'd assume it's one of those two things

I had the same thing happen with my first cultures, i agree with our man here, i think i changed too much for them too quickly and i did not use an air stone in the pond water mixed with fresh well water, i lost all of my scuds too. Trying again with a better setup and a plan to avoid stressing them too much 👍

Tomas oconnell shrimp is kind of a catch all term. I've heard them called gammarus shrimp or similar before. But I think properly shrimp only refers to prawnlike creatures, with eye stalks and long tails.

Never heard of them before glad i researched before just killing it. Also explains why it was hiding in a dying plant i was removing.

I can't imagine there being any issue with that, and the little critters will probably be happy to eat the membrane remnants that tends to be stuck in the eggs.

Angelfish Unlimited ok thanks, just wasn’t sure if egg shells would provide sufficient calcium, do you think the adults can still be eaten by my red eyed tetras? I’m worried that they will be too big, though I’m sure my axolotls would eat the adults

@@jamie91995 it really depends on your water chemistry, but egg shells are very high surface area so they should dissolve fairly quickly. Just keep an eye on them and add more as needed. As to size, it really depends on what you have. Azteca are small enough to be easily eaten by my phantom tetra, which are a bit smaller than red eye, but many gammarus species are a bit big as adults.

API Algaefix kills them, just as an FYI. Never used it on purpose for that reason, and I always try to salvage any that I can before dosing, but the stragglers die off around dose #3 in my tanks

@@MischiefandFins oh, I was actually planning a 5g to keep them. I wanted another tank anyway, as I have been tossing extra plant growth. Instead I'll make use of my trimmings. :) Plus I bet my gambusia would like them as a treat now and then. (Following this great advice, before any become food) But that info will help with those left behind in my plants tank. Thank you!

I haven't had any survive (without being eaten) long enough for that to be an issue, but I have seen them eat dead bloodworms, so I assume they would also eat eggs given the chance

@@MischiefandFins i had spent 2 hours doing some research and didnt find any cases, expect they might clean the outside of the eggs, i will see when i receive mine

Thanks for watching. I'll be doing some more videos on these in the future, but I'm waiting on my 4k equipment to get here. The stuff I have now really can't handle close up macro shots, so it's impossible to get anything other than blurry little potatoes. Hopefully the new stuff will be here at the end of the week and I can get some better stuff up of all the interesting little critters I have around in the weeks after that.

Thanks your very very informational