Freakin ISOPODS

[Shayn]

Well i just thought that aptasia was bad, and ive never had flatworms but have heard they are pretty bad, caught two mantis shrimp in the last 6 weeks, they werent so bad. But now I have the problem of problems it seems ISOPODS, They are the bad ones critoid ones I believe, had one attached to my sohol tang, I have managed to catch the one and only adult one i have seen, got lucky checked the tank early one morning after first spotting the isopod, and when it tried to swim off against the side of the tank it ran into a snail on glass so i netted both of them, dam thing almost swam back out of my net. Now a week later I checked tank and I have at least 10-20 baby ones in there, they seem to be even harder to catch, so far traps are not working, this weekend I will try to syphon them out early one morning. I would greatly apreiate anyones insite to removeing these pest, any Natural nocternal predators out there that are reef safe? I had thought about removeing my sand bed till this morning i saw some run and hide on the rock I do not want to ditch the rock as its the livest live rock ive ever come across, maybe to alive Well any ideas please shoot my what u think...thanks for any insite!:eek1:

 

[elegance coral]

I'm no isopod expert, but I've never heard of them reproducing in a tank. Are you sure the little ones you are seeing are actually isopods?

 

[MrMarth]

They definitely change size from young to adult. The first one we caught in our tank when it attacked our clownfish it was ~.25", we saw another one the next day about the same size and removed him as well. 3 weeks passed without seeing anything (checking the tank several times each day) then we saw a huge one ~2.5". Luckily we caught him before he made a snack of anything.

We found the easiest way to catch them was to wait for them to land on the glass then suck them up with a turkey baster. Good luck getting rid of yours and hopefully you get them before they have a new batch of young.

 

[CoachOJ]

+1 on the turkey baster. Had A LOT of late nights watching and sucking them up off of the glass. When I did my research I was told they would breed so I would get going. My advice would be to NOT do a lot of searching for information because honestly it was very upsetting. I always saw them around the sand bed and glass and it took me a few weeks to get rid of them all. Good luck and it can be done! Might want to invest in a red light to help with the capture.

 

[Shayn]

Yea i already got a red light and am planning on flat doing a water change at 4 am this fri/sat morning the baster has been working some what but i ned more suctions these things are actullly very strong/fast swimmers, i was wondering if the babys feed on fish or just adults, as I have not seen a baby attached to anything other than the glass. Does anyone know how often they can propreate? or any details of this things lifecycle? thanks guys for the responces! Ill try to post a pix of th eadult one i captured its been in a petre dish for 5 days looks like it is could live there indefently.

 

[Shayn]

oh elagance no doubt the baby pods i am seeing are isopods they have the shape, and the same beady eyes.

 

[skeeter_ca]

So these came in on your live rock. What area did you get your rock from?

skeeter

 

[MrMarth]

The babies will attach to fish to. I don't know how often they reproduce but you are going to be hard pressed to "wait them out". People who do so by removing the fish until they are gone usually do so around 2-3 months. If you want to read more here is an article on them.

http://www.reefs.org/library/article/clarke_shimek.html

I'll warn you though like CoachOJ in saying don't do too much research if you are easily upset.