Page 1 of 1

What is this? (New hitchhicker)

PostPosted:06 Oct 2019 00:24
by Owlbit
I found this tiny thing swimming around near the surface in jerking motions. It folds its tail and propels itself forward. You can see in one of the pictures that he has his tail folded. I took him out since I am not sure if he is harmful or not.
20191005_161606.jpg
20191005_161606.jpg (17.46 KiB) Viewed 7799 times
20191005_161549.jpg
20191005_161549.jpg (86.75 KiB) Viewed 7799 times
20191005_161534.jpg
20191005_161534.jpg (96.12 KiB) Viewed 7799 times

Re: What is this? (New hitchhicker)

PostPosted:06 Oct 2019 08:12
by odin
Wow I’ve not seen one of those before, I’m sure one of our other members will know what it is though!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

Re: What is this? (New hitchhicker)

PostPosted:07 Oct 2019 00:27
by Algae In Space
Pfoa! It's a big amphipod. Pretty cool!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amphipoda

If's only one you could keep it. I guess I would. Maybe in a separate jar.

Re: What is this? (New hitchhicker)

PostPosted:08 Oct 2019 22:14
by Owlbit
:what: oh so that is what amphipod looks like. I knew it was too big to be the copepods that I see when the lights turn on. thank you.

Re: What is this? (New hitchhicker)

PostPosted:09 Oct 2019 14:32
by Algae In Space
👍🏻

Re: What is this? (New hitchhicker)

PostPosted:09 Oct 2019 19:31
by Vorteil
It's a scud aka gammarus shrimp. There's both freshwater & saltwater scuds. Great live food for shrimp. I have tons of those in my freshwater shrimp tanks. They feed on detritus and dead vegetation. I made the huge mistake recently of using a turkey baster for both brackish and freshwater shrimp tanks. Some of the scuds transfered to one of my brackish opae tanks. I've probably removed at least 70+ from the tank. I think I got most out. I remove a few everyday. These got out of control in my FW tanks. At one time I probably had easily over 2000+ in my 10 gallon tank. I was feeding them to some fish but no longer have the fish. Population got out of control. Now I'm trying to get them all out but I doubt I can.

Re: What is this? (New hitchhicker)

PostPosted:09 Oct 2019 21:19
by Algae In Space
Holy bananas!!!

Re: What is this? (New hitchhicker)

PostPosted:11 Oct 2019 03:03
by Owlbit
:laugh: those are the lovely skuds you talked about.

Skud, the new crustacean pets. If sea monkies can be a thing, so can they.