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Cirolanid Isopod on clownfish - now what?


tranceFusion

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tranceFusion

Some background: My tank is pretty new - I ordered aquacultured live rock from florida at the end of June. It had a ton of life on it -  several brittle stars, bristle worms, fan worms, spaghetti worms,  sponges, pods, etc. I also added live sand and one of those starter bacteria bottles. The tank cycled very fast and any ammonia I added would quickly disappear.. I did high salinity dip which chased out some xanthid crabs, but still I ended up with a mantis shrimp in the tank, large flatworms, a few pencil urchins and some other unwanted critters in the tank. I figured I wouldn't bother with a QT tank on my initial stocking as it seemed more likely any problematic pests would be on the rock in the display tank than on the fish. I added a cleanup crew after a couple of weeks, and a couple of tiny clownfish, a yellow clown goby, and a frogspawn a couple weeks after that, and then a tailspot blenny and Skunk Cleaner shrimp about two days ago.

 

Last night after lights out I saw something on one of my clownfish's face, and it seemed to be a cirolanid isopod. I netted the fish and put it in a small jar. I was going to pick the fish up and use tweezers to remove it, but when I pulled the fish out of the water the isopod jumped off.

 

So my question is - what now? Are there likely tons of these things in my tank that are going to start killing my fish? Should I try to setup a trap and see if there are more in the tank? Or just assume they are and get my fish out of there?

 

At this point I am leaning towards moving the fish and inverts to a 2nd tank and draining the display and starting over with dry rock but maybe that is too drastic? Can I get away with moving the fish to a new uncycled tank if I do water changes every other day while the display tank cycles again?

 

 

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Oh, nasty, you got all the bad stuff. Yikes. 

 

Should still QT, though, fish are the ones that bring in things like ich and velvet. 

 

I would isolate your fish, if possible, and set up some traps. You don't need to put them in an entirely new tank, you just need them where the isopods can't get them. Get a couple of those mesh breeder boxes and put them in those? You might even be able to catch some isopods if you sneak up on the tank at night with a red light flashlight and look to see if they're trying to get the fish. 

 

If another one hops on another fish, a freshwater dip will likely make it leap off. 

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Yeah it always puzzles me when people say to dip all corals and quarantine fish, yet they promote using live rock from the ocean. Sounds like you got all kinds of critters on your rock. I like using Caribsea Liferock personally. Glad that isopod hopped off your fish! 

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Live rock is great stuff. It comes with years worth of biological filtration buildup, a ton of detritivores, and plenty of non-pest algaes to outcompete the pest stuff. You'll see far more problems from using dry rock than from live, on average. It's just that sometimes someone gets unlucky with live rock and gets something unpleasant.

 

When you do get something bad on live rock, it's usually a single critter, or a small group. The tank-wrecking stuff like SPS bugs, zoa pox, and fish diseases come in on fish and corals. It's a good idea to visually inspect live rock, and preferably check for critters a good few times after lights-out. 

 

Sorry you got a bad spin. Traps are a good way to go. And the good news is, cirolanids don't usually kill their prey, not right away. Obviously you don't want them around, but as you can see from the clownfish, they don't leap on something and kill it. Some critters do, but not cirolanids. 

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tranceFusion
8 hours ago, Tired said:

I would isolate your fish, if possible, and set up some traps. You don't need to put them in an entirely new tank, you just need them where the isopods can't get them. Get a couple of those mesh breeder boxes and put them in those? You might even be able to catch some isopods if you sneak up on the tank at night with a red light flashlight and look to see if they're trying to get the fish. 

Thanks so much - I got a couple of breeder boxes at a local store. That should buy me some time. 

 

But what do I do now? Should I start setting up another tank to move the fish into? How will I get rid of the cirolanids?

 

Given that I also have flatworms, is it worth nuking the whole tank at this point? I could move the fish into another tank, bleach all of the rock and start over?

 

2 hours ago, j.falk said:

I don't understand why the clownfish's fins are shredded...what was it fighting with?

I think this was the tankful of clowns at the LFS nipping at each other. Unless it looks like some other problem? I didn't notice how bad it looked in person because he is small and constantly moving.

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44 minutes ago, tranceFusion said:

I think this was the tankful of clowns at the LFS nipping at each other. Unless it looks like some other problem? I didn't notice how bad it looked in person because he is small and constantly moving.

Yeah, that would make sense.  Hopefully that tail grows back fully.  I'm always really picky when I buy fish.  I never buy them if they have shredded fins like that.

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1 hour ago, tranceFusion said:

Thanks so much - I got a couple of breeder boxes at a local store. That should buy me some time. 

 

But what do I do now? Should I start setting up another tank to move the fish into? How will I get rid of the cirolanids?

 

Given that I also have flatworms, is it worth nuking the whole tank at this point? I could move the fish into another tank, bleach all of the rock and start over?

 

I think this was the tankful of clowns at the LFS nipping at each other. Unless it looks like some other problem? I didn't notice how bad it looked in person because he is small and constantly moving.

I would just put the clowns back and remove any of those blood suckers you find when they hop on a fish. I doubt there are many. That may have been the only one. 

 

As far as the flatworms go, what kind? Polyclad or something else?

 

I wouldn't nuke the tank. That would be kind of silly after paying for all that life. Live rock pests are pretty easy to remove, just takes a little time to catch them. It is a small price to pay for having a jump start on your tank and some real ocean life. 

 

I used KPA rock and have sound all sorts of cool stuff from bright red algae eating snails to tunicates and so on and it has made keeping my 5g pico easy peasy 🙂

 

 

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I'd just keep some bottle traps in the tank. Check them every morning. You'll catch a lot of harmless stuff, and if there are any other pests, you'll probably get them. 

 

Polyclads are mostly snail-eaters, they aren't an emergency. Others are often very specialized and only eat one thing. 

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tranceFusion

Ok thanks 🙂

 

I put a bottle trap in the tank last night and turned the LED lights on low red and caught one more. It actually didn't seem to be able to find the entrance but I grabbed it with a turkey baster as it was circling.

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tranceFusion
13 hours ago, Tamberav said:

 

As far as the flatworms go, what kind? Polyclad or something else?

 

...

 

I used KPA rock and have sound all sorts of cool stuff from bright red algae eating snails to tunicates and so on and it has made keeping my 5g pico easy peasy 

🙂

 

 

Seem to be polyclad. And yes my rock is also from KPA.

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I've dealt with these things twice out of the two times I ordered aquacultured florida live rock for my two previous tanks. My recommendation is to toss the live rock and restart with dry rock. I know it sounds extreme but hear me out...

 

There is a good chance that there are several of those isopods in your tank. I tried to "hunt" them really late at night for a couple months nearly every night. I got tired, I could never feel confident that I eradicated them. I wouldn't see one for 3 days and then I'd find more. If you go fishless, these Isopods can survive for a long time off decaying matter, which your live rock will have plenty of. You'll end up buying fish, some might die and you'll wonder if it was because of the Isopods and it'll probably upset you. You could never justify buying nice fish because there is always a chance that they would not thrive and/or die.

 

If you restart with dry rock, yes you may not be able to get started with a mature tank as fast as live rock, but you'll have peace of mind. Reefkeeping is hard enough as it is, is it really worth the additional headaches? It wasn't for me...

 

For what it's worth, this past most recent time I used Florida live rock, I put in my clownfish pair, and the small one was covered in a handful of baby sized isopods in the evening and it literally could not swim right. I fished it out, user tweezers to remove the isopods, and put the clownfish in a safe space in my sump and it died overnight. I'd also see my tang with bite marks that left unsightly scars on their body.

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On 8/16/2020 at 10:29 AM, tranceFusion said:

when I pulled the fish out of the water the isopod jumped off.

problem solved

 

On 8/16/2020 at 10:29 AM, tranceFusion said:

The tank cycled very fast and any ammonia I added would quickly disappear.. I did high salinity dip which chased out some xanthid crabs, but still I ended up with a mantis shrimp in the tank, large flatworms, a few pencil urchins and some other unwanted critters in the tank.

"Fast" was the wrong idea to start with, if that was an actual goal.  Taking your time more in the beginning and along the way may have even prevented the interaction between the clownfish and isopod.

 

If you start with live rock you shouldn't do the ammonia cycling thing that is so popular online.  

 

Ammonia spikes are bad for things in the tank.  It's only used to cultivate bacteria – nothing else.  Live rock has bacteria of course, so there's no need.  If anything you would be taking action to AVOID ammonia spikes and dilute them if they happen.

 

If anything, you wanted a curing process, not a cycle....curing usually includes observation time where you can trap out the unwanted.  "QT" if you want to call it that.  👍

 

The rest are par for the course...you should be expecting stuff like that.  Find homes for the stuff you don't want....sometimes for $$.

 

All of this beats the pants off of having a dino bloom wipe out your tank, or (bad enough) bloom for months to years on end.

 

All you're doing by comparison is getting a nice view of life in the ocean.  😁

 

Unless you have another stable marine tank just waiting, I wouldn't disturb the fish any more than you have to.  Just continue being vigilant, as you were before and should be anyway regardless of all this.  👍

 

3 hours ago, tranceFusion said:

Ok thanks 🙂

 

I put a bottle trap in the tank last night and turned the LED lights on low red and caught one more. It actually didn't seem to be able to find the entrance but I grabbed it with a turkey baster as it was circling.

See, you're already doing it.  No need to panic....just keep at it.

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