Well I have some great news to report!!
We are now on day two since the operation and I'm happy to report that so far my Shrimp seems to be ok. He is not behaving in any unusual ways and is still eating. Despite his traumatic experience he is also still relatively tame.
I got a friend to film the actual operation itself which I'm in the process of uploading. I hope that it will be useful to anybody else in the future that has a shrimp suffering from this problem.
Now the survival of the shrimp very much depends on him molting without any problems. I timed the operation to fit in with this. So I waited until a long time after the last molt so that one should be "due" very very shortly.
Here are some step by step pictures of how I did the operation. I'm not saying that this is the right way to do it, nor do I promise it will work for you. But thus far it has worked for me. In theory I could have just given up on the shrimp. I would have looked to take him out for fear of these things spreading, but research suggests that wouldn't have happened - I just don't like to take chances. So really I did this as an "experiment" because I could find very little info about this on the internet.
So without further a do here are the pics! :thumbsup:
I chose a conical shaped container with minimum water. This would allow me to gently pin the shrimp to the side and allow me to work on it without him moving around so much. Also lets lots of light in so I can see what I'm doing. You can hopefully see the isopod parasite just near the gills. Another reason for doing this with the shrimp in the water is to minimise risk of air bubbles trapping in the carapace.
Gently pin on the side holding towards the rear of the abdomen.
Small incision on the side with a sharp blade to get to the isopod. The carapace grows over the actual parasite itself so this is required to enable you to remove it. Be careful not to cut anymore than a small part so you can try to slide the isopod out.
Using a very sharp pair of tweezers you can pull the isopod out of the small cut you made. This might seem a bit brutal. But if your literally having to rip it out then you need to make your cut bigger or try from another angle. Once you have made a big enough cut, with some gentle encouragement it should just wiggle out. They will shed any eggs/larvae at this stage so ensure you DO NOT put the shrimp back in with the water it was operated in. I changed him to another cup of tank water for a rinse before placing him back in the display tank.
One removed nasty parasite!!
