Gammarus as a filter helper - AU

GurkanYeniceri

I am looking into getting some amphipoda (side swimmers) like gammarus species to help with the accumulated fish poo and uneaten food in the filters.

There is a nice article here about them.

In Australia there is a protected one called Austrogammarus australis and there are many other side swimmers listed here though I am not sure about their efficiency in the AP system.

My question to Australian APers is; do you have these little crustaceans in your system? And would you be kind enough to send me a little jar of it?

scotty435

Make sure they have enough dissolved oxygen, they breathe through their gills so if the filter is going anoxic because of too much rotting organic matter, they'll have some trouble.

GurkanYeniceri

Thanks Scotty. I will make sure they have neough O2

atomicpapa

Where would you place them to keep them from being eaten by your fish? Sump tank? Swirl filter? After reading the article you linked, I am interested in them. I have goldfish in my system. Would I even need to be worried about them being eaten?

GurkanYeniceri

I think, the beauty of these shrimps is they are also food for fishes. I will put them into my RFF. My RFF will be a hybrid of RFF+SUF so that they wouldn't shawshank their way into the sump. Even if they do, majority of them stays in the filter (I am hoping).

No, you don't need to worry about them being eaten.

Yavimaya

this has been proposed many times here, but no one has ever come back with a definitive answer.

if i am to ever try anything like that (again, i had muscles in the system when i started it), i would go with muscles again, but would probably try create a better environment than i gave them in the past.

atomicpapa

GurkanYeniceri wrote:

I think, the beauty of these shrimps is they are also food for fishes. I will put them into my RFF. My RFF will be a hybrid of RFF+SUF so that they wouldn't shawshank their way into the sump. Even if they do, majority of them stays in the filter (I am hoping).

No, you don't need to worry about them being eaten.

Pardon my ignorance, but an a swirl filter and RFF are the same thing, yes?

Yavimaya

close but not quite.
swirl, swirls the water.
radial flow makes the water flow down, then turn up.

but he said SUF, which is static upflow filter.

basically a media filter which enter the bottom and exits the top.

GurkanYeniceri

Yavimaya is right. Both Swirl filter and RFF is for bigger particules of fish poo and uneaten food etc. They sink to the bottom and upper columns of the water is relatively clean. Than SUF is for the suspended particules.

RFF+SUF hybrid is basically RFF with floating filter media on top like bottle caps, bioballs etc. and output is from the top. With enough O2 and the help of mini fresh water shrimps, I am planning to get some mineralisation going on in the filter before it enters the grow beds.

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