I Was Parasitized Last Night!
 

Back in November 2003, we found some bugs in our then 72g. After much reading, posting to Dr. Ron, we concluded we had non-parasitic isopods:

http://www.lostmymarblz.com/72gal-bug-6.jpg

Over the years, rock has been in one tank or another, corals have moved tanks, sandbeds were removed, tanks upgraded, geez, a whole mess of stuff has gone on with our three reefs.

Got a rusty dwarf angel over a month ago for our 120g. He wasn't getting into the eating thing very well for the first few days, so I decided to feed it a half scallop onion-bagged and elasticked to a small piece of rock. He loved it instantly. A couple of weeks later our latticed butterfly caught on that this was great stuff, and it began to eat it too.

Scallop is added before morning feeding and taken out at least an hour before lights out. One night I forgot about the scallop until an hour after lights out, but did finally get it out. Once removed from the piece of rock, ALL KINDS of isopods had burrowed into the bottom of the scallop. By that time, it was really stinky, but there were big and little isopods, presumably parents and offspring.

Have not had any problems with isopods on our fish in any of our tanks, which makes me believe we really do have scavenger, and not parasitic, isopods in probably all three reefs given their histories.

Last night, however, I put an extra powerhead in our 37g to "help" our GTBAs move from their crammed in spot. Got the powerhead in place, turned it on and some crud started blowing around. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed some kind of small bug swimming around.

Suddenly, I felt a sharp pain on one of my fingers! I called out to Chris who came right over. We managed to get it off my finger, only to have it settle up on my fore arm!! I pulled my arm from the water and Chris removed and killed it, so, sorry, there are no pics to compare the people biter to the pic from 2003.

I looked at my finger and it was bleeding from a tiny bite mark. I'm totally freaked, but am kinda thinking I'm getting old, but I'm not carrion just yet :razz:

Anyway, for the life of me, I couldn't remember the name of the bugs, and that bugged me :lol: Hadn't been over to RC for a few days, so I went over there this morning. Lo and behold, they have an article on catching parasitic isopods....

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-02/bp/index.php

And there's a link to the original article that helped us ID our original bug....

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2002-05/rs/index.php


Finger is okay today, but there is a small scar. Isopod wasn't on my fore arm long enough to do much damage and it's okay as well. Didn't get paralyzed or anything overnight, either.

And, yes, "parasitized" is a real word. Looked it up in the dictionary when Chris said I can't just make verbs out of nouns anytime I want :wink:

Did you happen to touch the scallop before adding the pwr head??
Was thinking if you did,then possibly your bug was disorented enough from being blown of the rock,that it thought your finger smelled like food.

Probably touched the scallop from the 120g two hours before adding the powerhead to the 37g. Washed my hands several times in between, though. Where the isopod bit me was sort of near the webbing between my third and fourth fingers and not where I would have touched the scallop with the tips of my first and second fingers.

I'm sure the isopod was disoriented by the blasting powerhead, though.

Anyway I look at it, YIKES :eek:

Ya pretty mean looking,I bet they crawl out of you tank at night and terrorize your pets hehehe.

Well, that is one of the ways that you can get them out of your tank! Think of yourself as live bait...

Sorry, not my style :rolleyes:

Maybe you can stop by and we can use your arm :lol: :wink: