Gammarus

[Khmer Aquaponics]

Hello! Has anyone got this guy in the system?  This little guy has done a great job at Friendly Aquaponics ,and now I doubt how this little guy exists in their system. 

[Bob Terrell]

Since these little critters live all over the world, do they live in cold water as well as warm water?

[Chip Pilkington]

Hi Bob,

Yes, they do live in cold water. Several years ago I spent a great deal of time fly fishing mountain streams and high altitude lakes in Colorado. The best and most consistent fly patterns in many of those high lakes were scud patterns. Both screening and pumping fish stomach contents showed the fat and healthy fish were eating scuds heavily. BTW, these lakes all freeze to several feet thick through winter so once again, yep, they survive in cold water.

[Bob Terrell]

thanks,  so much to learn!

[Chip Pilkington]

These are two of many colors and variations.

 

 

[Bob Terrell]

neat looking little critters.  And those are how big?

[Chip Pilkington]

They range from under 3/8" to just over 1/2" or so. You can basically tie them any size your ability allows.

The goal is to find out the size and color the fish are actively feeding on, then match it as closely as possible.

The picture I showed were not my scuds - unfortunately, my fly fishing gear is back home in the states, residing in a storage unit :(

[Bob Terrell]

Thanks

[Dan Ponton]

How about ghost shrimp? They will do the same, won't they?

[Jon Parr]

I think there's several varieties of shrimp that fall under "ghost shrimp". The ones I'm familiar with do not breed in freshwater, but live and eat and grow in fresh just fine. To utilize them, you would have to keep a salt breeding population going. I'm experimenting with cherry red shrimp, but my system gets too cold to keep them alive. (at least I think the cold is the cause of their demise)

[Keith Rowan]

i had a planted tank that i put some ghost (or glass, or grass) shrimp in and did have a couple of spawns i didn't know about until i saw the juveniles.... having the right plants for the shrimp to live in makes a difference.. i fed quite a few to the yp (one made it to the sump), and had been breeding them in 2 tanks until the marmkrebs took over

[Jon Parr]

Nice to hear, Keith. Do the marmorkrebs do the same job as scuds? 

Google says nothing about needing salt to breed ghost shrimp, so I may have been miss-informed by my LFS. I'll try some, and I'll have to get me some of those marbled craws too.

[Keith Rowan]

the marmokrebs are detrivores, but i do feed them frozen peas.. the krebs are a bit higher up in the food chain, the small ones that manage to escape predation in the pool past about 1.5" are safe from the fish and allowed to grow

the scuds that are in the culture tanks are raised primarily for feed for minnows and baby fish, but they also get seeded into any filters/growbeds