Hi all,
I've found a potentially useful alternative crustacean to Asellus aquaticus and Hyalella azteca as "tank janitor" and live food source.
It's called "Crangonyx pseudogracilis" and it has the advantages of being quite small (less than 10mm) and very tolerant of warm water and low oxygen levels etc.
They look like a small, translucent green coloured Gammarus ("Freshwater Shrimp"), and they both swim like a Gammarus (on one side), walk around like an Asellus ("Water Louse").
I've found them for a while now in some of the filter sponges in the aquariums, and wondered about what they were, and why they seemed happy in the tank (Gammarus struggle with the low dissolved oxygen levels found at warm temperatures).
After the students fished some out of the ponds at work I had a proper go at ID (I knew by then that they weren't a native species, and was a bit worried they were a Dikerogammarus "Killer shrimp").
Once I'd got a name I found that Crangonyx are used as a live culture fish food and as a bioassay organism, partially due to their "ease of culture".
If any-one wants some I can have a go at posting them in damp moss.
cheers Darrel
I've found a potentially useful alternative crustacean to Asellus aquaticus and Hyalella azteca as "tank janitor" and live food source.
It's called "Crangonyx pseudogracilis" and it has the advantages of being quite small (less than 10mm) and very tolerant of warm water and low oxygen levels etc.
They look like a small, translucent green coloured Gammarus ("Freshwater Shrimp"), and they both swim like a Gammarus (on one side), walk around like an Asellus ("Water Louse").
I've found them for a while now in some of the filter sponges in the aquariums, and wondered about what they were, and why they seemed happy in the tank (Gammarus struggle with the low dissolved oxygen levels found at warm temperatures).
After the students fished some out of the ponds at work I had a proper go at ID (I knew by then that they weren't a native species, and was a bit worried they were a Dikerogammarus "Killer shrimp").
Once I'd got a name I found that Crangonyx are used as a live culture fish food and as a bioassay organism, partially due to their "ease of culture".
If any-one wants some I can have a go at posting them in damp moss.
cheers Darrel