To Many Amphipods

Paul B · Jun 21, 2014

Today it was a beautiful day so my wife, I and another friend went out on my boat. We anchored where I usually do right off a tide pool in the Long Island Sound. I took my dinghy to the tide pool to do a little collecting and it is now officially amphipod season. I go here almost every week to collect and this week and maybe 2 more weeks the amphipods must be either spawning or playing soccer or just partying because it is the start of summer. They are all over the place and all I had to do was put my arm in the water and it was covered in amphipods. I collected a few thousand in a couple of minutes. Then, like always I dumped them in my reef but I think it was to much although the fish felt like they died and went to heaven. I probably collected a quarter of a pint, without water. That's a lot of amphipods and they filled my reef. I already still had plenty of them from last year so they can make new friends.
Here are some on a leaf. :smokin:

Here is a video of some I took last year, they look the same this year so make believe I just took this today. I collected many more times this today.

Vinnybagodoughnuts · Jun 21, 2014

Aren't you afraid of introducing parasites???

Paul B · Jun 21, 2014

The tank is 43 years old and I have been doing this for 43 years. The tank was started with water from there. Does that answer your question? :wave:

Tahoe61 · Jun 21, 2014

Actually it seems like a legit question to me. I used to hunt for different Arthropods for my octopi after they hatched. I had to be pretty careful as I inadvertently introduced some nasty Arthropods such as parasitic Criolanid types.

Vinnybagodoughnuts · Jun 21, 2014

Not really......:high5:
Have you killed alot of things??:squigglemouth:

Paul B · Jun 22, 2014

Actually it seems like a legit question to me.

It actually was a legit answer. My tank is not run like the majority of tanks. I use mud from the sea all the time, never have to quarantine and don't have any test kits. I did do all those things for years and also lost plenty of fish. But not any more. Some of my fish are 23 years old and virtually all of my paired fish are spawning. I keep my fish in breeding condition through live foods so I don't have to worry about paracites or just about any other disease. There is a many year thread on here someplace about my practices so I don't want to get into it much on this amphipod thread.

Vinnybagodoughnuts · Jun 22, 2014

Hmmm interesting.I bet all those people using caution and quaranteening everything feel pretty silly right about now.:wink:

Paul B · Jun 22, 2014

Hmmm interesting.I bet all those people using caution and quaranteening everything feel pretty silly right about now.:wink:

No, they don't feel silly. Most of them think I am nuts. The majority of tanks could not get along without quarantining as the animals are not at the peak of their health. Unless the fish are spawning, they are not very healthy and need to be protected from just about everything.
My fish are immune from most diseases but it takes some work to get them to that point and feeding flakes, pellets and most commercial foods won't do it. Many people who do practice quarantining have fantastic systems, just different systems than I have.
I regularly collect amphipods, mud, seaweed and all sorts of things from the sea to dump in my tank. If I were of the mind set that I needed to quarantine everything, I could not do that. There are two basic ways to run a reef tank. One is sterile by siphoning everything, using all ASW, dipping new corals and quarantining everything. My tank is different where I can put in whatever I want and feel the bio diversity and bacteria is more important than the slight chance of a disease which by the way has not happened since probably 1979 or so.

Vinnybagodoughnuts · Jun 22, 2014

There are over 5000 species of Amphipods.Most are harmless but there are parasitic and carnivorous species as well.You must be one lucky guy Paul.:angel: