Always Something... ISOPODS

[Melusina]

Your new tank inhabitants seem happy - the Gorg is gorgeous! Hope all goes well with the move. Strangely, I enjoyed the article - not sure whether it was the demise of the isopods or the writing style of the author that I enjoyed more. Or the mental picture of him tiptoeing up to his tank in the dark.

Thanks for the info!

 

[figuerres]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13259557#post13259557 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Melusina
Your new tank inhabitants seem happy - the Gorg is gorgeous! Hope all goes well with the move. Strangely, I enjoyed the article - not sure whether it was the demise of the isopods or the writing style of the author that I enjoyed more. Or the mental picture of him tiptoeing up to his tank in the dark.

Thanks for the info!

yeah it's a well written article, I like it also.

well friday I got the finqel, foreceps and some para guard, today I got some smaller mason jars and some water bottles and rubber bands.

I have about 24 gallons of new saltwatwer getting ready with air stones.

tonight and tomrow I'll be making pod traps and doing a water chnage to get ready to net my fish and check each for pods and remove as needed.

so by this time tomorow I should have pictures of the next steps in my process.

also I think a mantis ate a clenaer shrimp ! I only see one red and white cleaner today!

 

[figuerres]

well I have examined the clowns and Can not find any pods on them! I will be checking them for the next few days very closely in case I missed one.

the Finquel works very well, I made a solution in a glass jar and put plain saltwater in a large specimin holder (rectangular plastic deal they sell at LFS or on line)

started adding small amounts of finquel solution to plain saltwater till the clown was not quite asleep.
works ... well, I was able to check the fish and then move it to the biocube and it recovered very rapidly, in less than a minute it was swimming normaly.


I have not yet got my hippo tang yet, he knew something was up and hid in the rockwork.

I took some of the rock out but taking out all of it .... I hope by letting it be for the night I can net him tomorow.

I have photos but have not uploaded them from my camera yet.

I have the traps ready and some stinky shrimp in a jar for bait
jar is well sealed and in the fridge till I need it.

 

[Untamed12]

Chicken!!!

 

[Melusina]

It looks like a little trained seal that's standing up and clapping and waiting for you to throw it a fish! :fish2:

 

[Untamed12]

I think he was more likely thinking..."please don't kill me...I'll be good...I didn't mean anything by it...I was just trying to survive...put me back in the tank, I'll be good...."

 

[figuerres]

new assorted photos...


http://picasaweb.google.com/figuerres/PodRemovalProgress#

but with all that work guess what?

none of the pods are on the fish when I finaly got them out of the tank!!!

I KNOW I saw a big one on the tang, I can see aplace where it was that is healing.... well I hope they are in the tank somewhere where I can starve / catch them and make it safe to return them, a few of the fish can stay in the bio cube but not all of them, esp not the tang.

 

[divemonster]

Tough luck Denny All of that work and worry, then you're not able to find the culprits!

Will you still set the traps in the big tank or just starve them out?

 

[figuerres]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13306474#post13306474 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by divemonster
Tough luck Denny All of that work and worry, then you're not able to find the culprits!

Will you still set the traps in the big tank or just starve them out?

Yes, I will definitly do some of both.

first as there are no fish, the amount of "food" I add will be almost zero. some for the anemoneis and the corals but not the normal feeding like fish need.

then after a while I will try traps to see what I can catch.

this also was / is usefull in doing a good cleanup and water change.

the anemonie I digging his foot back into the sand bed this morning...

I will be looking at moving a few things, some of the coral might be better placed.

 

[divemonster]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13306518#post13306518 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by figuerres
Yes, I will definitly do some of both.

first as there are no fish, the amount of "food" I add will be almost zero. some for the anemoneis and the corals but not the normal feeding like fish need.

then after a while I will try traps to see what I can catch.

this also was / is usefull in doing a good cleanup and water change.

the anemonie I digging his foot back into the sand bed this morning...

I will be looking at moving a few things, some of the coral might be better placed.

Denny, how's your hunt going? I'm so thankful to you for this post. These nasty little buggers were in my nano tank. One got smushed with a chopstick, and 2 more are residing in a little bowl.

Fortunately I only have Part 1 in this little tank at the moment so they were easy to catch. Now I will wait and watch to see if there are more before getting Part 2.

 

[figuerres]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13370124#post13370124 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by divemonster
Denny, how's your hunt going? I'm so thankful to you for this post. These nasty little buggers were in my nano tank. One got smushed with a chopstick, and 2 more are residing in a little bowl.

Fortunately I only have Part 1 in this little tank at the moment so they were easy to catch. Now I will wait and watch to see if there are more before getting Part 2.

Not much to say at the moment...

Been letting the 90 just kinda do it's thing.

one fish had to stay in the 90, a six-line wrasse
in the 90 I had a lone fire goby who kept to one corner and the six-line-harasse would come over and chase him into hiding from time to time. if I had put them in the 29 gallon cube the flame goby would be dead by now.
when all is said and done the flame will stay in the biocube.

no signs of problems with the tang and clowns in the cube other than the tang was sleeping under a zoa-rock but I think now he is finding other places, I kept worrying he would get sick from the zoanthids stinging and mucus... seems ok though.

now that some time has passed and no real food has been added to the 90 I will run the bait jars and see what I find.

also I found a very small anemonie and what I think is a tiny filter feeding cucumber on one rock.

I will have to try and use my macro lens to even get him in a photo, say 4mm or less in size.

 

[g8gxp]

Well apparently a I have these things too. I got part 1 about 2 weeks ago. tonight my wife noticed a whole bunch of little things swimming in the water column after lights out. Apparently a brood of them hatched or something because there are DOZENS of them. Tiny things, no more than 2 mm long.

What should I do? How do I starve these darn things? they are waaayyy to small to grab with anything other than a pair of tweezers and would slip right out of a net. Fortunately I don't have any fish, but with the amount of algae and miscellaneous stuff floating around I don't think they will run out of food anytime soon.

 

[figuerres]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13388635#post13388635 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by g8gxp
Well apparently a I have these things too. I got part 1 about 2 weeks ago. tonight my wife noticed a whole bunch of little things swimming in the water column after lights out. Apparently a brood of them hatched or something because there are DOZENS of them. Tiny things, no more than 2 mm long.

What should I do? How do I starve these darn things? they are waaayyy to small to grab with anything other than a pair of tweezers and would slip right out of a net. Fortunately I don't have any fish, but with the amount of algae and miscellaneous stuff floating around I don't think they will run out of food anytime soon.

well first do not jump to any conclusions.... there are litteraly hundreds of "small critters" / AKA PODS that you might have seen.
even ISOPODS can be ok there are only about 2-3 kinds of isopods that are not good for our tanks.

the "BAD" isopods have a very distincive body and eyes.
so for now just try and get a good look, if you can catch some in a clear plastic or glass contianer in use a magnifiing glass to examine them.

for example I have a lot of small "sping tail" isopods in my tank, they are natual fish food for my wrasse.
also good food for any fish that can catch them.

the bad isopods tend to stay hidden, if you see swimming pods
you may see mysid shrimp or other kinds of spawn from crabs, shrimp etc... they swim when first hatched.

I used to have some good macro photos of some... not shure where they are now, but you can google for photos on line.
isopod, copopod, zooplankton

 

[chrisgil10]

uhhggg

uhhggg

I had these things and when small like you described I would wait until lights out and they would start swimming around and hangin on the corners or my mag float. the only way I caught them was to go real slow as close as i could with a turkey baster that all the are was out of and let go of the bulb they would get sucked up. then i put them in a glass bowl to see if I caught them. you have to shake it up a bit or they get caught in the bulb. when I knew i had it I went after more counting each catch to make sure they did not stay in the baster. when I could find no more I dumped them in the toilet and flushed them I did this for like 2 weeks straight before no longer seeing any where from 2 to 6 a night. I did catch one larger one but not with the baster it was more luck. I forget how though.


at least you found out before you had fish I bought a damsel and like 2 attached to its mouth. I was lucky though he got them off while I tried to catch him and then i took him and my other two out until I got it all cleaned out.

 

[figuerres]

NEWS:

I did a filter sock change and now have a sample of some "Good" TBS pods and some "bad" tbs pods.

I think my camera batterys just finished re-charging so I can snap some photos, got my macro lens ready so hopefully I can get some good close up pictures in a few minutes.

 

[figuerres]

link to photos:

http://picasaweb.google.com/figuerres/20080921PODSFromMyFilterSock#

Good

BAD

if you look at the album I had 6 bad pods and a whole lot of good ones.

the good ones are fish food, clowns, wrasses and other fish love to eat them.

 

[figuerres]

small update: now about 26 days with main tank clear of all but the wrasse.

I did a filter sock change yester day, checked the sock carfully and did not find the bad pods.
that does not mean they are gone but they can only go for so long w/o fish to feed on if they are the parasitic type of isopod.

any of the "scavenger" forms will still live though...

when I did a stink-jar I did not find any pods.
but I am not doing that every night.
well now to see what happens over the next 2-4 weeks.

 

[Drunes]

Thanks for the update, think I will let mine sit for a couple of weeks without any fish in it after part two just in case. It will probably take me that long to catch the mantis that I am bound to miss. :lol: :lol:

 

[Melusina]

I've been watching my tank after lights out at night with a flashlight with a red beam. I've seen several things that look like those insects that we called "rolly-polly" bugs as kids which I'm assuming are some type of good pod. Last night, I saw something that quickly hid when the flashlight hit it so I didn't get a good look. It appeared to be about 3/4 to 1 inch long, and about 1/4 inch wide. I've never seen that before - any ideas?

 

[figuerres]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13487797#post13487797 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Melusina
I've been watching my tank after lights out at night with a flashlight with a red beam. I've seen several things that look like those insects that we called "rolly-polly" bugs as kids which I'm assuming are some type of good pod. Last night, I saw something that quickly hid when the flashlight hit it so I didn't get a good look. It appeared to be about 3/4 to 1 inch long, and about 1/4 inch wide. I've never seen that before - any ideas?

well that could be almost anything given that all you really said is size and fast moving.... sorry but w/o a body it's a total guess.

just look at the photos I linked a few posts back, the "BAD" ones are very distinktive when you do see them.

one other thing I can say is the good ones move with a kind of "hop" but the bad pods seem to move in very strait paths.
reminded me of how a roach will scram when the lights come on in a room that has them.

at 3/4 of an inch to an inch it could be a small mantis shrimp, a large pistol shimp, a crab, some other shrimp, a small goby fish
or some other thing...

Goby: tbs rock sometimes will have a small fish called a "tiger goby" they are often less than an inch long and are nearly transparent. they will hide most of the time and are hard to see even when they are out.