Live Scuds (Gammarus) - Fish Food & Clean Up Crew

Meet Puffer Pantry’s Live Scuds (Gammarus) — the tiny, hardworking crustaceans that bring life, movement, and balance to freshwater aquariums. Scuds are beloved for their versatility: they’re an incredible clean‑up crew, endlessly entertaining micro‑critters, and a nutritious live food for fish, amphibians, and invertebrates.
Cultured in my solar‑powered microfauna farm, grown with the same care I give my own tanks for freshness and quality you can see.
These scuds are raised on a clean, varied diet of biofilm, botanicals, algae, and fresh home-cultured phytoplankton (Chlorella + Tetraselmis) to ensure strong reproduction, excellent survival, and vibrant coloration. Whether you’re adding them to a display tank, starting a culture, or feeding your fish, these little swimmers are ready to thrive.

What They’re Great For

- Natural clean‑up crew
- Enriching planted tanks
- Feeding puffers, bettas, cichlids, nano fish, axolotls & more
- Supporting microfauna ecosystems
- Seeding new tanks with biodiversity
- Creating self‑sustaining live food cultures

What You’ll Receive

Choose your portion size:
20 Scuds – perfect for beginning a new scud colony
50 Scuds – great for feeding and culturing
100 Scuds – ideal for multiple tanks or fast reproduction (100‑count photo coming soon — same quality, just more scuds!)
Each portion includes a healthy mix of adults, juveniles, and babies, harvested fresh from my solar‑powered microfauna farm and harvested to order to ensure peak vitality on arrival.

How to Keep Them Thriving In Aquariums

- Provide hiding spots (moss, leaf litter, rocks, sponges)
- Feed lightly with algae wafers, veggies, or biofilm‑rich botanicals
- Keep water stable and oxygenated
- Safe for most peaceful fish (but many fish will eat them)

For Culturing

- Use a 1–10 gallon container
- Add leaf litter, moss, or sponges
- Feed sparingly (they thrive on biofilm)
- Perform small water changes weekly
- Avoid predators if you want a breeding colony
Scuds reproduce quickly when conditions are stable — most cultures boom within a few weeks.

Storage & Care

- Do not refrigerate
- Keep at room temperature
- Avoid sudden temperature swings
- Provide structure for hiding and grazing

Important Notes

- Scuds may prey on newborn shrimp, so avoid adding them to active breeding tanks
- They are excellent for cycling and biofilm development
- They ship in clean water with structure for safety and comfort

Our Quality Promise

Puffer Pantry cultures are solar‑farmed, small‑batch grown, and handled with care from start to finish. If your culture arrives anything less than active and healthy, message me and I’ll make it right. Because your critters deserve the best — and so do you.

Live Culture Shipping Schedule and Temperature Policy

We ship out Monday-Wednesday only to ensure our live cultures arrive fresh! Orders placed after 12:00pm PST Wednesday will be shipped out the following Monday.

Note: We currently only ship to the U.S. and do not ship to Alaska or Hawaii at this time.

To keep your live cultures safe in transit, Puffer Pantry ships only when temperatures support a healthy arrival.

We do not ship when:  

- Origin or destination temperatures are below 35°F  

- Origin or destination temperatures are above 95°F

If temperatures fall outside this range, your order will be held until conditions improve.