Feeding Gammarus to Fish

Here is one of my 1 gallon nurseries with Gammarus culture as of March 2020. 

Gammarus are scavengers that feed on algae, detritus and basically anything organic.

 You can see different sizes and ages of Gammarus dashing here and there. 

Gammarus feeding on detritus helps to keep aquariums clean, and fish eat Gammarus. 

For these two reasons, I like to add Gammarus into all my aquariums with fish.

 Moving plants from an aquarium with Gammarus is one of the ways to add Gammarus into an aquarium with fish. 

Here you can see a pair of adult Gammarus on a Hornwort plant.

 Who knows how many more Gammarus are on this plant. 

Let's just put it all in the aquarium with fish. 

By moving plants, we don't have control over how many Gammarus get in the aquarium with fish.

 Well, we can catch as many Gammarus as we want using a pipette or a turkey baster. 

First I put Gammarus into a glass cup to take a look at them.

 Now let's empty the cup with Gammarus right into the aquarium with fish. 

Fish always take great interest in everything that moves in an aquarium.

My toothless dwarf Guppies would go after anything that moves. 

They cannot swallow large adult Gammarus - those are relatively safe in aquariums with small fish.

 However, even small fish will hunt down any small Gammarus.

 After initially adding Gammarus a couple times into aquariums with fish, I let them be. 

The surviving adult Gammarus breed continuously. 

Fish eat most of the young Gammarus for sure. 

Only some young Gammarus survive by hiding in a thicket of plants or between gravel. 

Those few youngest that survive grow big enough to keep the colony growing.

 And so it goes month after month - you may wonder for how long... 

September 6th, 2021

 At first glance you may not see Gammarus in this aquarium.

 It's been...way more than one year since I added Gammarus into this aquarium the last time. 

Look again and you may notice one or two scuds here and there.

 Now...watch what happens as I move the plants in the aquarium. 

Dozens of adult Gammarus rush down from the top to hide on the bottom in the gravel.

 That is more than a year old colony of mostly adult Gammarus.

That is all it takes to provide fish with live food - keep Gammarus in aquariums with fish. 

Have fun and happy fish :)