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So I move my fish over to the new tank, and not ten minutes pass and my white cheek tang has 2 isopods sucking on his fins!!! Arrrgghh!!

Anywho, anyone have luck erradicting these suckers?

Fresh water dip mabye? Should get rid of the parasites.

Brad, i read somewhere(unfortunatly can't remember where) that interceptor might work to clean these things out of a tank, Dr. R. Shimek didn't think it would work without doing in a bunch of good things too though :frown:

I'm sure you've already found this article but i will post the link anyway :biggrin:
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2002-05/rs/index.htm

Formalin dip?

no, dipping the fish won't work. The isopods feed then take off. They're gone now. I could pick them off with tweezers if I caught the fish, but are there more? I can't catch fish everyday. I'm going to try and bait them with some fresh sole tonight, see if the swim into a trap. I only saw two, so I'd like to get them before they breed.

i have these small white pods that hang out along the silicone in the corners and under the magnet. they are white and look a bit like lice. are these what you have?

i saw this on rc maybe it will help

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showth...rolanid%2Bbite

willow, no, these look like flat tic-tacs, a bit smaller maybe. That trap idea is my plan fo rthis evenig, I'll see if they like fresh sole!!

good luck, from what i read they sound like a major pain in the ass.

what they hell are my lice then?

I have things crawling around my live rock right now, sounds sort of like what you're talking about. As I have no fish in my tank yet then I dont know if they go after fish.

I have been told that what I have *might* be copepods. Are these good, bad, neutral?

Cam, those are good things. isopods are rare, and you don't see them running around. You're fine :biggrin:

Willow, not sure. Can you get pics?

Thanks Brad. Feeling relieved.

Hopefully your "hunt" tonight catches all of them and you can be rid of your creatures.

Well, used the fish in a vase trap technique, and caught 2 in under an hour. It seems they like the sole!
These suckers are incredibly fast swimmers and I can see how they can easily catch a ride on a fish.
They're also very ugly. Watched one under the scope for a while. One concern I have is one of the ones I caught was very tiny, so I'm scared that a female has hatched her brood pouch. However, if they are attracted to the bait, I'm hopefully I can trap and remove them.
They seem to just attach to the edges of the fish' fins, not bore into their tissue as some isopods are reported to do, so I hope I can trap them all before any damage is done to the fish.

Brad, any idea how they got in? New live rock or a fish? I've seen pics and read about them, wouldn't want them that's for sure. Any thought to feeding your fish food soaked in garlic to see if it keeps them from attatching?

Doug

Doug, they came on new rock. I thought about the garlic thing, I may give it a try.
I caught one more in the trap, and I was able to net out the female clown and remove a large blood gorged alien! I just turned the lights on, and no i-pods attached to any fish. Hopefully I get them all before they make more!!

Yikes! I hope you are able to get rid of them!

Nothing like sacrificing a sole dinner to catch some isopods, hey? :lol:

It ws on sale, and if I got them all, I can eat the sole for dinner !!

I'll bait the tank for a few nights and see if I get anymore, but none on the fish right now, so I'm sure there can't be too many in there!

I have had some small isopods in my tank that came in on the live rock, they look quite similar to cirolanid isopods but they did not go after my fish, they seem to be scavengers.

I read that a good way to trap cirolanid isopods is to get some clear plastic tubing maybe 1/2" size, put bait in the middle, then plug the ends loosely with filter floss, the isopods can get in but can't get out quickly. Never tried this method myself though.

These ones love fish, which helps I guess with the whole tapping thing. I've got a narrow neck vase tht works great so far, we'll see how hunting goes tonight.

Here is a link with pics to what I have in my tank!!

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh...hreadid=541529

do isopods happen to look like white sand fleas? because i have what looks like 2 white sand flea in my lr.

Justin

nope. The white sand flea things are amphipods, a good thing to have. They run around at night eating "left-overs" .

Hope your hunting expaditions are fruitful :biggrin:

Well, I'm at 8 captured isopods as of last night. My concern is that several were very tiny, menaing their might be 20 to 30 more if it's a newly hatched batch. I'll keep hunting until the trap stays empty for a week.

The good side is I haven't seen any larger ones on the fish for 24+ hours!

20 or 30? I'm guessing 100 or 200 :eek: Hope I'm wrong.

are the fish in there? looks like 6 weeks they will die with out food.

Steve

Several months ago, we found some isopods in our 72g when it was set up. Didn't know what they were and did a whole whack of research at the time. Turned out they were scavengers and not at all harmful to fish.

Anyway, during my research, I read about parasitic isopods. If I understood correctly (and don't have the pages to support this, dang), some parasitic isopods are very adaptable and will scavenge in the absence of fish. If there is enough crud to eat, they can be in a system for months and freaking months without fish :eek:

Brad, I truly hope you are able to capture all the bad guys from your new tank :2gunfire:

Steve, yes, the fish are inthere. I read that it can take 2 to 3 months minimum to starve them, and even then they may still be around. I also read tha tthe average brood pouch contained 20 to 30 young, so that's a trappable number, me thinks.
I'm doing well with my trap, although the late hours might wear me down!

comeon brad it's your new hobby :mrgreen:

Yup, and I've stocked up on coffee. Ready the traps, and put the pot on, it's almost trappin' time! :biggrin:

to bad there not big enuf to eat, some coffee, beer and it would be just like crabbin :mrgreen:

Steve

Steve, I think if we leave them long enough, they get bigger. Bev posted a pic of an adult, lots of meat on them!!

Here's the adult Brad was talking about:

http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/explor...isopod_220.jpg

Probably different species. I hope :eek: