I Caught The Little @#%@!!!!!

[pat_man_ta]

I found this after searching Google:

http://www2.nau.edu/~shuster/Research/The%...s%20sculpta.htm

 

This appears to be what I have. I am still trying to find out more info on what they eat and their behaviors. Until i know more however, If i can catch it, it's dead. I am hoping the other two are either sub adult males or at least segregated into my LR filter. THey were hitchhikers with my LR rubble.

[SoBe]

I caught my isopod.: It only took two months of checking the tank every night, a flashlight, a net, and a quick hand. Side by side, my isopod looks Exactly like AReef's. Anyone, who is lucky enough to catch their's, keep him for a while, in a jar or something. Then when you're tired of staring at him on your kitchen counter, fill his jar up with boiling hot freshwater.

*insert evil laugh here*

 

Mike

[newbiecarlz]

isopods in fish are really nasty. i did a marine parasitology course at uni and we disected a bunch of fish with isopods, they hang around in the fish's buccal cavity mostly (mouth). i had one out of the water for about an hour, thought it was dead, went to pick it up and it latched on to my finger OUCH! im not sure how u can get them off a live fish (without damaging it that is), but once the fish is dead they evacuate pretty quick so i dont think they would attach to a dead host... i dont know anything about them in a captive environment though.. that said you might want to find out if that is a parasitic species or not.. there are free living forms (non parasitic), and some that have hosts other than fish (cephalopods, crustaceans, even other isopods).

[pyrrhus]

you may have to go through a lot of sacrificial damsels to rid your tank of them. it may be easier and cheaper to starve them without fish in the tank for 3-6 months then try a sacrificial damsel. BTW Dr. Shimek did an excellent article on live rock hitchhiker in marine fish and reef usa 2004 and has a pretty decent sized section on isopods. he states that a dip in hypersaline water SG 1.035 would probably cause them to bail out, just dont keep the rock in for more than a minute or two to reduce die-off and rinse in normal SG water before adding back into the tank

[AReeferIsExpensive]

im going to check out that article....

lowering SG sounds a lot better than killing a fish!

they may be fast, but they are not that shy. It may be because its a 16g with only 3 pieces of rock in it and a big sand area, but at night they just sit out in the open in the sand. When this is all over with, im buying a sand sifter from walmart and sifting all the sand in the tank (i heard they dig and hide as well)

[Hwarang]

Here's a pic of one being all up in some fish's buccal cavity.

[Jean-yus]

I am prolly wrong but, Dont these guys ONLY go for fish? They dont Harm Coral or Snails I think. But I may be wrong...

[AReeferIsExpensive]

jean, you are correct....the ones we are talking about eat fish only.

The snail catch was just good luck

I wish they ate other things b/c then i wouldnt have to resort to sacrafising the fish.

Im doing the lower SG dip tonight, ill let you guys know how it turns out.

Hw- that is DISGUSTING!!!! im glad mine dont look like that, or else id have issues even putting my hands in the water to pick up the rock!

[john76]

How bout leaving the tank fishless till they die off?

[pat_man_ta]

Does anyone know if cleaner shrimp (like my peppermint) will eat or remove small isopods and or fish lice from an afflicted fish?

[AReeferIsExpensive]

john- b/c then 8 months later im still going to wonder if i killed them all, not want to risk my fish and resort to a sacrificial damsel anyhow~

i rather just address the problem.

also, i know that i had more than one and they breed...so theres no telling how long it will take

pat- i wish i remember reading something about a mantis shrimp eating them....

besides that, i highly doubt any shrimp would eat them off because if the solution was that easy, then everyone would just buy one. when i searches for treatment i always find the same 2 options..bait or starvation

[reefsrule]

why not frozen mysis shrimp? When I was feeding my tank a little guy that looks just like the picture in this thread came out and started eating it. I don't have any fish yet, so I'm going to try and catch it the next time it comes out.

[AReeferIsExpensive]

let me know how it works out reefs. i may give that a try too.....

[AReeferIsExpensive]

OMG Reefs THANK YOU!

im really desperate because i want to upgrade everything to the new tank but i cant cause the iso's.......I thought about what you said and after a little brainstorming i took it to myself to build a cheap trap. 2 hours later..ISOPOD!!!! heres some pics with the bastard

[AReeferIsExpensive]

This is the trap with him inside of it. Its a clear film canister...

 

i took a dremel and drilled a sloppy little hole in it. i kept the hole small to keep the food in, so if he found another piece he wouldnt go inside, and also so that he would stick around and feel "safe" if you will, after the meal to give me time to catch him. I also put sand in it for more "comfort" and also to weigh the canister down. Then i placed a VERY small amount of formula one and 1 frozen mysis shrimp in it. I submerged it slowly and placed it in the corner of the tank in the sand, hole at the bottom, turned the lights off and left. I did it in a clear one so i could keep the room pitch black, and take a high powered flashlight and shine it through the side, peaking into the hole to see if i see anything.

[AReeferIsExpensive]

a couple hours later on my second check, i shined the light and saw the silouette of an isopod munchin away. The trap n bait was a success!!

[AReeferIsExpensive]

Now im putting the trap back in tomorrow night and if there is no visitors for a week, the tank is fish safe

 

i also found this guy on a sponge on the same LR......

I thought he was a flatworm until i realized he was hard, then i thought he was a limpet until i saw him curl up into a ball. then i considered a chiton but when i flipped him over, he looks more like a soft shelled limpet. i dont even know if that exists though...

Its a lot prettier and detailed than my dig camera can pick up. when he was on the rock, he had a nice grip on it like a snail, and was spread out more than in the picture. the rim of it was translucent~

 

 

any ideas of what this one is?? (if its ANTOHER kind of parasite im going to cry!)

[artarmon42]

Wow, this thread has really taken off!

 

It's worthwhile remembering that Isopods is a wide grouping of critters. While some are parasites, the majority are simply scavengers (eating detritus). And apparently they all multiply faster than rabbits... :-*

 

It's almost a certainty that there will be some Isopods in your tank. If you search hard enough, you'll almost certainly find one. But does that mean it's parasitic?

 

 

I want to share my personal experience and hope that'll help others get back to enjoying the hobby...

 

I've been through this worrying in the past few weeks.

I've been through the depths of paranoia and depression about how to get rid of these suckers.

I finally took the plunge and stuck in a "sacrificial fish". This was my last resort after finding out that I wasn't even making a dent at reducing their population, let alone catching them all.

 

And you know what?

Now that I've had my fish in there 5 days, I can honestly say that that was the best decision I could have made.

 

I could have gone on many more weeks fussing over the chance that I had a parasitic Isopod...

Instead, I now know.

 

Would I still be saying this if I found an Isopod attached to my Maroon? Most likely. If I knew for sure that I had it, then I can figure out what the next plan of action would be.

 

The biggest problem is not knowing whether you have the bad ones or not. It'll be weeks before every Isopod in a tank is caught... if ever!

 

Now some people might find it enjoyable to hunt Isopods every night, rather than enjoying/growing their tank.

For me, a "sacrificial fish" has bought me relief from the fear and enabled me to start populating my tank sooner! :woot:

 

Founding member of "Isopods Anonymous"

[AReeferIsExpensive]

mine were the kind that only eat fish. knowing this made me hesitant in getting a sacrificial fish b/c that sounds so mean. But now when people have the bad kind, at least they know that they dont have to resort to that beause the trap alternative is just as successful without hurting a fish. im in this hobby because i love fish, so putting a fish on its death bed was not a fun thought! if those things are hungry, they will eat~ so

its going back in the tank tonight to see if anything is left...

 

 

anyone know what that 3rd pic is??

im holding it in a bucket and i dont know what to do with the thing~

[stan]

I think i have one similar to yours and i'm concerned as well....

 

However, doesnt the fact that this trap of yours worked kind of prove that these arent the parasitic isopods we're all scared of but rather the harmless scavenger types?

 

They went after the dead pieces of shrimp, not the blood of a live animal. A parasite wouldn't be attracted to this type of bait, a scavenger would.

 

Just an observation.

[AReeferIsExpensive]

i had never even looked at iso pics of facts until this happened. im assuming b/c in a fishless tank, if a hungry isopod sees a pinch of formula one, they are going to have dinner. the shrimp may have been dead, but they werent cooked....and shrimp have blood.

 

i looked around for hours trying to identify what i saw and then came across a cirolanid isopod page and they had pics of the EXACT thing i had. after i caught one, i relooked up info and confirmed the ID.

[reefsrule]

Well I hate killing things so I'm gald the trap worked. So do the things go after shrimp, because I did have a cleaner shrimp that was doing well, and I'm pretty sure it died because of a problem I was having with the tank, so maybe they might be scavengers ( I really hope so). But it never hurts to make sure. IF something does go wrong in my tank then I wouldn't hesitate to do something.

[Case]

Im a beginner in fact im a pre-beginer im getting ready and planning my own tank and I saw this thread and said “Ahh jesus on a cracker” this better not happen to me so I decided to get my investigational skills to work and it turns out a “Isopod” is a family of parasites so there wont be no general one way to kill or eat them there’s actual isopods that grow under logs from what I have been reading.

 

So from my reading there is really two groups you can break it down into ones that can cause havoc on fish and coral and others that can actual help your tank and be beneficial…

 

So now the question is how to tell the difference…

 

So I stumbled onto this nice PDF

http://www.aquaculturemag.com/siteenglish/...atureForWeb.pdf

 

and so far what you have sown does not resemble the ectoparasites they talk about that can infest and eat the fish… At this point I think honestly some one needs a testing to be done and a fish as a victim… just to see if they will feed or worse nest and lay eggs on this fish….

 

Ill keep reading lets see….

[hogangtp]

any ideas of what this one is?? (if its ANTOHER kind of parasite im going to cry!)

well i had no idea and wanted to know what it was so i grabed a book, the closest thing i could relate it to was a chiton. which graze on algae films, and are usually reef safe

[Case]

Sure enough I just stumbled onto a article on sharks in captivity and how they die from ISOPODS normally and speak of treatment

 

The most effective way to treat specimens with parasite problems is with dylox or by giving your shark or ray a formalin bath (1 milliliter of formalin per each gallon of water for one hour). Be sure to aerate the container while giving the bath. In less severe copepod infections, the parasites can be carefully picked off with tweezers or, even better, a cleaner wrasse can be employed as a biological control of crustacean parasites

 

Reading on I go….