BrianPlankis
Premium Member
I'm curious if you ended up using the trap from my article?
http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-02/bp/index.php
scowiii, in the link above I describe the trap I made that helped me eliminate the cirolanids from my tank.
While I'm certainly not an expert on Cirolanid isopod distribution, I do know that they are found in every marine environment (except maybe the deep sea vents?) from the Antartic to the Artic. Their density depends upon location, food availabiliy, breeding conditions, predation, disease, etc.
When you buy any aquacultured rock that is shipped in water you will get better survival of the good and the bad lifeforms. Cirolanid isopods are found on live rock from almost any vendor, I've seen reports from both Pacific and Atlantic rock. If you want to purchase live rock from the Pacific to decrease your chance of these bugs, you are also losing all the benefits of rock that still has some life on it.
Pacific rock is for all intents and purposes dead rock.
As someone else said earlier, you get the good with the bad. I really disliked my population I had of them, but I was able to get rid of them using the trap and other capture methods described in my article. Ever since then I've been enjoying the sponges, tunicates, porcelain crabs, cup corals, tube corals and Manicina areolata corals that came on my rock.
Brian
