Gammarus is not only a dry food ...

These or that inhabitants of aquariums were practically at all. Someone was engaged in breeding fish, the other talked with a turtle, and the third more like cryptic snails. Therefore, almost everyone knows that gammarus is a food. But he was not born a food! So what is this being before it is still alive?

Habitat

Gammarus is a crustacean living in almost every reservoir in our country. Surprisingly, it adapts easily to life not only in fresh water, but also in salt water. It has several names, such as kozyavka, mormysh, humpback, bormysh and even freshwater shrimp. In total there are more than 4.5 thousand species of this crustacean in the world, however, in our reservoirs there are mainly two of them.

Gammarus is a bottom inhabitant. He lives under the rocks, climbs into holes in snags, hides among the sand and pebbles by the shore, where there is a lot of detritus and plants. These crustaceans do not like bright light, preferring to stay in the shade. Are able to withstand significant temperature fluctuations - from 0 to 26 degrees. If the reservoir in which gammarus lives, freezes completely, the crustaceans burrow into the ground.

Gammarus is a crustacean with a lifespan of only about a year. In addition, they react quite painfully to water pollution, perishing with insufficient oxygen.

Food

Eats the rotten leaves of fallen leaves and dead aquatic plants. Eating, mainly, plant food, gammaurus will not refuse and the remains of fish or animals that died in the water. Sometimes crustaceans eat their smaller "brothers".

Appearance

Live, just like dry, gammarus has an arc-shaped body, covered with a shell. Chitin covers 14 segments. On the head are the eyes and two pairs of tendrils, which facilitate the search for food, because they are organs of touch. During movement, the crayfish moves sideways. He helps himself with 18 legs. It is through the way of movement that the crustacean has one more name - the amphipod.

On the paws of the crustacean are the gills. The ventral and hind legs are equipped with bristles for swimming and taxiing. In addition, the rear helps the crustacean to jump, and the abdominal ones - to keep food. The hind legs are constantly moving, ensuring the flow of water to the gills. Female, in addition, have a brood chamber for eggs, located on the chest.

Reproduction

Gammarus for turtles, as well as any other, constantly needs food, as it continuously grows. Regularly there is a change of the chitinous shell, which quickly becomes close to the growing body. Approximately weekly in the summer and every 16-17 days in the winter, molting occurs.

Sexually mature crustaceans become after changing the chitinous cover 10 times. They are able to bring offspring several times a year - it depends on the temperature of the water: in a warm water body this happens much more often than in a cold water.

During spawning, the male clings to the female shell. Clinging, they can swim for up to a week, waiting for the moment when the female begins to shed. Once this happens, the male helps complete the process, then applies the seed to the walls of the egg bag, using the abdominal legs. This process takes only a few seconds, after which it detaches. The female lays about 30 fairly large eggs in the brood pouch.

The embryos develop 2-3 weeks, after which the fully formed crustaceans emerge from the bag.

Nutritional properties

Gammarus feed is a valuable source of nutrition for fish of various species. It is used both in fish farms, and for feeding aquarium fish and amphibians. Gammarus is used both as the main food, and as a purification of the digestive system.

The main advantage of Gammarus is a high nutritional value and a significant content of carotene. It should be borne in mind that living crustaceans are able to tolerate some parasites that can harm the health of fish. That's why you should use frozen, dried or ozonized food.

Artificial breeding

For feeding fish at fish farms, as for the production of feed for aquarium inhabitants, it is not enough to catch crustaceans in various rivers. It is necessary to establish an uninterrupted supply of this type of food. It is for this purpose that special farms are created that are engaged in the supply of feeds for various species of aquarium fish and amphibians.

In order for the crustaceans themselves to feel great, they dig out long ditches about 30 cm in width and depth. Inside, they make small niches. Meals are used as food. It should be borne in mind that the meat should be fresh, in no case rotting. In the resulting ponds sedulate crustaceans, previously caught in natural reservoirs. As the crustaceans multiply very quickly, the pond fills the nutritious gammarus in a rather short period of time. Food for fish is selected very carefully, catching only individuals of a certain size. Thanks to this approach, it is possible to feed fish with crustaceans of the size that suits them best. For example, young trout can only eat small amphipods, whereas adults receive the largest.

When feeding aquarium fish with dry food, the size of the crustacean does not matter, since it is very easy to grind it. However, from the brood canals, mainly large adults are removed so that the livestock is constantly changing, and there is a possibility to regularly receive fresh nutritious food for fish and turtles.

With the exhaustion of the resources of existing channels, new ones are digging, where the young Gammarus is transported and the process begins from the very beginning.