Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Raising Forage and Bait What's up with the scuds?

Nope, no RT yet, but there maybe some winter put and take stockings in the future. The orange colored scuds will likely be easier for the fish to find and prey on the scuds, and the carotene is just added brain food for my SMB for the upcoming showdown with Sunil's SMB.

Bruce, it is very likely there is an abundance of scuds in my brothers wetland, the ducks seem to prefer it to all other wetalnds in the area, it happens to be one of those rare never been plowed wetlands with huge amount of biodiversity.

Here is an intersting read on lesser scaup and amphipods:

http://etd.lsu.edu/docs/available/etd-01242006-093828/

If scuds are not prevelent in his wetland I would be very suprised. It could also be a great place to stock scuds and then harvest them later.

Here is another read.
http://www.epa.gov/owow/wetlands/wqual/pph2_4.html

So, scud hunting is likely best in fishless wetlands that have deep enough water year round.

My scuds are in the mail now. I will report back on the results later.

to discuss mushrooms at the pond, i think we need a new topic, i would be interested in that topic

my scuds are coming also. whats next?

has anybody tried raising the fresh water shrimp big enough for a pond boss to eat?

BZ,

I sent you a PM.

Shorty & ewest, after reading about your idea to feed brain food to your smallies, I sent an email to my smallies to see what they thought.

Their reply is somewhat shocking, as follows:
"Sunil, we've known about Shorty's plan for some time now. Many months back, we sent a covert-spy smallie to Shorty's pond. Getting to Shorty's pond was not as difficult as we had anticipated; with the aid of Google Earth and some low altitude photo's of Shorty's pond on the forum, we were able to get our operative placed with minimal effort. Our rogue smallie will make every effort to blend in with Shorty's smallies and gain acceptance. Due to his high intellect, he will most surely be selected to participate in the competition. Once the competition begins, the rogue smallie will start to give incorrect answers while feigning extreme nervousness. This will be done in order to throw the match. There are many other things that we are doing, however, we choose to not share those with you at this time, nor any time in the future. By the way, we have solved the earth's energy problems."

I sent a reply as follows:
"Smallmouth, recall your operative at once. I am only interested in a fair, above-board competition. I expect a full report of ALL activities that have occured since Fall '06. More importantly, I expect full royalities on all technology developments."

Within a few seconds, I received their reply:
"Sunil, we no longer report to you, nor do you own us. Leave us alone or suffer grave consequences..."

There was far more to this final email, however, it's far too profane to post here. The basic twist was that I'm a moron, and I have no claim to anything because I have not been to my pond in over (3) months.

It's a sad day here.

You should tell them you have a pump ,a backhoe and a sharp knife !!

Maybe I'll tell them I ordered some Rotenone also.

Sunil - I only inform you of this since you no longer have any control over your smallies. My smallies did inform me some time ago that a rouge smallie did show up that just didn’t blend in well, they promptly turned him over to the red ears for some agressive interrogation. He didn’t stand a chance and spilled the beans about this covert plot to cheat on the upcoming competition. Little do your smallies know, but my RES were also able to convert him over to a secret double agent, all of the information he has been emailing back to your smallies has been bogus for quite some time now. Little do they know how ill prepared they will be for the upcoming competition. BTW – he likes his new home so much that he has no plans of returning to PA, he is now forever a Big Red fan now. :p

The name's Pond, James Pond.

"BTW – he likes his new home so much that he has no plans of returning to PA, he is now forever a Big Red fan now."

Hey Man! That's poaching.

Thanks for the reply BZ! I'll be watching for updates on how your scuds do this year.


Russ

i got and installed my scuds yesterday. there were only as many swimmers as floaters but in the end the sinkers seemed to be coming to life after laying on the bottom as each time i checked the sinkers there were more and more movement.

My scuds were in similar condition as cliffbrook's. I had plenty to provide broodstock for this spring. I split my shipment between two ponds. A pond with good weed growth and YP as predators and a pond with just shiners present but weed growth is presently limited to just Chara. I still question the ability of Gammarus lacustris to tolerate 86F-92F waters. Time will tell the rest of this story.

So am I to understand from your statements Bill and Cliffbrook that only half of yours survived the trip? That's not that good is it? If so I wonder how Kyle packed them. When I picked mine up I expected he would fill the bag with pure oxygen like they do with minnows when they'll be in the bag a while. He did not do this for me. I would think when you are shipping them pure oxygen would be a must. If he didn't do this for you I bet it would help survival rate don't you think? I hope they grow well for you both. I'll report back on mine whether I see any evidence of them surviving and/or reproducing as the year goes on. I still have 18 inches of ice but it has been near 50 degrees the last two days. I usually see ice out about mid April.

i think they were in like suspended animation. i installed into shallow water near, not thru a hole in the ice. 99% were imobile on the bottom of the bag and laid on bottom after they a short time with bag in the water and were dumped out. i checked back some time later and they were having more and more movement. as you said bz he is catching them when they are in low O2 environment. my guess was he was not adding O2 and you confirmed that guess.

so they were lethargic but i think it will be ok.

the next day had huge runoff as the spring thaw it bigtime.

i think there may have been more than one type as some were definitely orange. otherwise bills photos are right on. but doesnt show the pile in the bag. maybe i have one of those

If Kyle put close to a gallon of scuds in the bag/bucket there was not a whole lot of room for water. When I got my ship container open, I immediately put medium-strong fine bubbling aeration just under the surface. Water temp on arrival was 50F. Then I gradually added a small amount of ice and began replacing the water in the container with fresh oxygenated water of the same temperature during the next 20 min to slowly bring the water temp down to 40F. While doing this I began removing small netfulls of scuds and put them in other buckets of fresh identical temp water. When water reached 40F, I began distributing scuds to various parts of my ponds. Complete transfer took me 2.5 hrs.

I held back one net full of scuds and kept them in fresh aerated water overnight. In the morning at 50F they were pretty active. Losses may not have been as high as I first suspected. Possibly only 10%-20% loss based on what was active from that netful the next day.

CB, you are correct that I said these are caught under low O2 conditions but then Kyle had them in an aerated tank where he keeps them prior to shipping. They were very lively in that tank. I think these are all the same kind of critter. If you look closely you will see that the orange ones are the totally dead ones. They very quickly turn orange after death. All of mine that were not orange recovered and swam away.
Bill, glad you had success. I followed a procedure similar to yours for introducing them to the pond. I had separated some out to watch them and wished I would have had an algea filled aquarium to put some in. I think they would have been fun to watch. Next time I have some handy I'm going to plan ahead and get an aqaurium started and see if I can raise a few indoors.

regarding the orange indicating death, maybe

here are a few pics of the spring melt runoff experienced 2 days in a row




2nd photo is 12" siphon with about 2 foot head

i have no idea if any scuds made it thru that washing machine

first photo is one of 3 into upper and lower is one of 2 outof upper and it was upper where scuds were installed

CB, I noticed you have some tilled fields adjacent to your pond. I'll pass on a comment I got from Kyle. He said to beware if you have drainage coming off of ag land into your pond. If there are any insecticides used on those fields they will most certainly wipe out most amphipods. He said that here in MN he has his best years in ponds adjacent to farm fields when corn is the crop. He has his worst years when soy beans are planted. The reason is that the farmers sometimes use insecticides on soy beans to kill aphids. Apparently it doesn't kill them all because they do come back but kills many of them. Good luck.

yea yo're right but you got to dance with the girl you brought. silt is a big problem too. we will see.

have you ever seen the asian beetles coming off the bean fields? they probly kill alot of bugs too.

Best of luck CB. Hey, Iowa has a special place in my heart since I was in high school. Used to spend a lot of time near Marshalltown hunting pheasants. I really enjoyed those trips. Didn't have a dog so we used to head down that way whenever there was new snow. Didn't need a dog after a fresh snow. Is Marshalltown in Marshall county?

thats right. with the iowa river. i know where to find sometimes huge flocks of pheasants. geese are all making funny noises and motions now on every waterhole and mudpuddle

Silly Question here, I can't seeem to find anywhere in NY area that sells scuds and or when they are best to put into pond. Anyone have any ideas? I have used Yahoo and Google to search for the answer to my question but I get anything from cold war - Iran/Iraq use of Scuds to what I am looking for but nothing around wher to buy them and when it is best to add them to a pond.

I think my YP would just love them and maybe even the SMB. I have enjoyed this thread and did not know about Scuds until I read about them here.

Thanks again!