This is my first post so forgive me if i'm all over the place.

Here is a link to what im talking about.

And here they are in my tank:

I do have a video of them in my tank, let me know if i should upload it. Had to camp out for a couple minutes in the dark to find them lolll.

So they eat algae, scraps and snail poop. I don't gravel vacuum at all, well not after i spotted them in my tank. I was kinda freaked out when i first saw them and i wouldn't stick my hand in my tank cause they pretty much look like the ideal creepy crawlies. After a couple minutes on google I found out that i didnt have to worry about them. After the first week of spotting them, the algae in my tank has gone.

Here is the history of my tank (no dirt, large gravel 65 gallons)

My tank was cycled a long time ago with some feeder fish (comets) and no plants, so there was a good amount of algae scrubbing and gravel vacuuming at every water change.

Fast forward a couple months maybe a year idk, comet fish are out of the tank in a pond outside, 4 fancy guppies added in. Also added in two dwarf lilies, some italian val, cacomba, two mystery plants from the store. Gravel vaccumed once before fish and plants were added.

A week or two later, plants are doing great (lots of new leaves). Added two koi angels, 6 x ray tetras, 2 false siamese algae eaters, and 2 more fancy guppies. Added 1 cap of seachem iron supplement and half a cap of flourish. Algae is started to cover all the gravel on the bottom and some on the glass.


another week later, a snail appears, couple days later there are even more and first sighting of scuds. Tons of algae and snail poop building up."omg what do i doooooooooooo"

fast foward to today. Did absolutely nothing. Ended up with about 10 pond snails at most, even though their eggs are everywhere. Algae problem lasted a week. Just added a bunch of more plants, maybe too much (couldn't help myself). Probably have 20 different species of plants in my tank at the moment. lolllll (i can't wait until they grow out). Added a cap of iron and flourish for the plants.

My gravel is pretty much spotless, even cleaner than gravel vacuuming could do. I can stir up any part of my tank and it won't cloud the water. Water is crystal clear. Going to wait a week before I start moving the plants again so they develop more roots.

Plans: going to add in the red clay i got from dustin, not sure how? Probably going to take out the snails because they seem to be starving/dying from the lack of algae.They started to eat some of my plants but i dont think they prefer it loll. Some of them like to float around in the water current.

Long story short, scuds are aweessssommmeeee saaaaaaaauuucceeeee. No snail poop, and don't have to gravel vacuum (wasn't sure how to gravel vacuum with plants anyways). Most of the algae is eaten by the snails and scuds are cleaning the snail poop. Scuds ate the algae that was growing below the gravel line where the snails couldn't reach.

Here is a picture of my tank before I got my order from Dustin

Here is the after

Yeah, very crowded lol, can't really tell the difference myself :X

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Sweet tank man scuds are awsome they are part of clean up crews don't worry about the snails they reproduce like crazy and will eventually take ur tank over but none the less sweet tank
Tank looks awesome what size is it?

65 gallons

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