Risk of not boiling river pebbles?

[jaylach]

I would also consider some miniature/dwarf crayfish as some are really pretty including blue and orange breeds and they are great tank cleaners eating just about anything that fish miss. I just think that my rope fish would consider them food instead of friends... thinking of the sharks in Finding Nemo on that... "fish are friends, not food'.

I like scuds a lot. I need to get up to the pond and get some before it freezes.

I have yet to ever have the beasties but think they are cute as a button. They also seem to be great for algae control cleaning plants and decorations without harming the plants... well some mosses are an exception to that but I don't have any types of moss. What, if anything specific, do you feed scuds when you have them? According to a video on them from Dan's Fish the 'meat' from pumpkins is really good for them but they will eat just about anything veggie including table scraps such as apple peel and left over veggies from dinner. Basically they are free to feed. Here is Dan's video on the beasties.

 

[WhistlingBadger]

What, if anything specific, do you feed scuds when you have them? According to a video on them from Dan's Fish the 'meat' from pumpkins is really good for them but they will eat just about anything veggie including table scraps such as apple peel and left over veggies from dinner. Basically they are free to feed. Here is Dan's video on the beasties.

Well, I suspect they would find sufficient sustenance in a mature tank with no intervention from me. However, they are basically fish popcorn, and I've never had any last long enough to need feeding themselves. The Badgerling keeps talking about having an invert tank to provide a steady supply of scuds, blackworms, and copepods, but for the moment I think we've pushed the number of tanks about as far as we can.

 

[WhistlingBadger]

@TheLavenderBadger Check out Jay's video on raising scuds.

 

[jaylach]

Well, I suspect they would find sufficient sustenance in a mature tank with no intervention from me. However, they are basically fish popcorn, and I've never had any last long enough to need feeding themselves. The Badgerling keeps talking about having an invert tank to provide a steady supply of scuds, blackworms, and copepods, but for the moment I think we've pushed the number of tanks about as far as we can.

I hope to have an on-going population of the beasties if I can ever get rid of my cichlids. I don't know if Panda Garra would chow down on them or not but I'm sure that my rope would. I want them whether I go 'live' river substrate or boil. My hope would be that as heavily planted as the tank is they would have enough places to hide to survive. Also I would feed scraps on a wood skewers with the pointy end pushed into a slot on my under gravel filter plates. Place in a back corner and I doubt that the rope could get at all of them as there would be two sides protected by the back and side of the tank.

While the scuds would serve as free fish food, especially for the rope, my hope is that enough would survive to establish a colony. Worth a try anyway. If it doesn't work there is still the option of a 5 gallon tank for the critters. According to the people at Dan's Fish a 5 gallon with under gravel or sponge filtration would be ideal.

<edit>
Who knows? Mayhaps the beasties would even work their way through the pebbles and be sort of automatic cleaners for under my under gravel plates.

 

[GaryE]

I would rinse the bejeebers out of the gravel, or collect the same gravel dry. It doesn't defeat your purpose - bear with me. I never add wet objects from nature to my tanks. There is too much of a risk of hydra, which are annoying, and pollutants are what they are. Cattle are messy, but as an eastern city boy I don't know how those farms are run.

Now, if you trust the stream, go back and catch the live food you want. Don't bring it on the pebbles. Net it, collect it and feed it.

I've been called careless here, for my attitude to things I pick up outside. All my aquarium rocks, wood and many of my plants are straight outta nature. But you have to approach things cautiously, and really observe the state of the waters.

At the same time, consider where your fish are from. We caught fish in Gabon in water that tested as pristine, amazing stuff. There was old clothing, food wrappers, and garbage bag debris along the shores. It looked drastic. The first fish I saw on the first morning was a magnificent Synodontis catfish swimming over plastic debris in the centre of a town. Pollution in the US would scare me more as the industrial farming techniques used are so much more destructive. But if it's cattle going to drink, it will be destructive, but not like if it's cattle or pigs in mega-barns pooping into systems that dump in the river. A friend of mine has a stream running through the back of his yard, and since I've seen how the farms run upstream, and seen the water over the course of a year, I wouldn't take a piece of gravel out of that one.

 

[jaylach]

I would rinse the bejeebers out of the gravel, or collect the same gravel dry. It doesn't defeat your purpose - bear with me. I never add wet objects from nature to my tanks. There is too much of a risk of hydra, which are annoying, and pollutants are what they are. Cattle are messy, but as an eastern city boy I don't know how those farms are run.

Now, if you trust the stream, go back and catch the live food you want. Don't bring it on the pebbles. Net it, collect it and feed it.

I've been called careless here, for my attitude to things I pick up outside. All my aquarium rocks, wood and many of my plants are straight outta nature. But you have to approach things cautiously, and really observe the state of the waters.

At the same time, consider where your fish are from. We caught fish in Gabon in water that tested as pristine, amazing stuff. There was old clothing, food wrappers, and garbage bag debris along the shores. It looked drastic. The first fish I saw on the first morning was a magnificent Synodontis catfish swimming over plastic debris in the centre of a town. Pollution in the US would scare me more as the industrial farming techniques used are so much more destructive. But if it's cattle going to drink, it will be destructive, but not like if it's cattle or pigs in mega-barns pooping into systems that dump in the river. A friend of mine has a stream running through the back of his yard, and since I've seen how the farms run upstream, and seen the water over the course of a year, I wouldn't take a piece of gravel out of that one.

LOL! I would bring up the fact that this waterway is the intake water for Dan's Fish but with their prep on the water including ultra violet I guess it doesn't mean much...

 

[GaryE]

LOL! I would bring up the fact that this waterway is the intake water for Dan's Fish but with their prep on the water including ultra violet I guess it doesn't mean much...

It means a lot to me. UV kills organisms, so extra E coli would bite the dust, but my concern would be chemical pollution, and if they're using it, I'd trust it.

 

[jaylach]

It means a lot to me. UV kills organisms, so extra E coli would bite the dust, but my concern would be chemical pollution, and if they're using it, I'd trust it.

Their water process is pretty amazing. They can actually do 750 gallons per minute. It is also very ecology centered. They even use isolated in and out take for each tank to prevent cross contamination. The following video is worth a look as it gives a pretty detailed view on how they handle their water. BTW, the apartment building behind the warehouse at the beginning when showing the creek is where I live. Has the advantage of not having to pay shipping. My apartments are about 50 seconds in.

 

[jaylach]

Oh, I should add to the previous post. Dan from Dan's Fish is an ex college professor that put a lot of time and work into what he came up with for a water system. What he came up with is so good that the government actually gave him permission to do all this. It has to be understood that the creek is part of a nature reserve next to my apartments. He is actually putting better water back into the creek than what he is taking out.

Even his heating of the intake water for the tanks is almost energy free as what I guess would be called passive heat exchanges are used.

He also does similar filtration on the output water that is similar to what is done with the intake to prevent the possibility of introducing pathogens or fry back to the natural waterway.

Ya, he seems to have a thriving business that started in his garage if I understand correctly but he is actually more concerned with the fish than the money. He even has tanks to house fish that he does not consider up to standards for sale to give them the best home he can without selling. He even has no time limit for quarantine on new fish. Of course he often gets in fish that are not in the best shape. He will keep such fish isolated as long as is needed to bring back to full health. Stuff like this is likely why he has about a 98% success rate on shipped fish which is well above the industry standard.

He just seems like a really good guy that really cares about what he is doing.

 

[GaryE]

I drove across the border and into Maine to get some of his fish once. He showed himself to be the real thing because he was stocking two types of lampeyes. That is the sign of a serious, knowledgeable seller!

My local stores wouldn't even know how to look up those fish.

If I were in the USA, I would trust his store and the Wet Spot to buy from, and no other online retailers. His creek is a good creek in my books.

 

[WhistlingBadger]

Dan must have some nuclear-powered UV lamps!

 

[jaylach]

I drove across the border and into Maine to get some of his fish once. He showed himself to be the real thing because he was stocking two types of lampeyes. That is the sign of a serious, knowledgeable seller!

My local stores wouldn't even know how to look up those fish.

If I were in the USA, I would trust his store and the Wet Spot to buy from, and no other online retailers. His creek is a good creek in my books.

Just so you know, as of June, 2023, Dan's now ships to most of Canada.

Dan's Fish, Quality Freshwater Aquarium Fish

Get freshwater fish guaranteed to succeed. Angelfish to rainbowfish, catfish to killifish, and many more for sale. All shipped Next Day Air.

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