isopod nightmare

A

Alien7

New member
well i just found out i have these after putting in a firefish. Within half an hour he was being feasted on by at least 10 baby isopods....i couldn't tell what they were at first, but after the blood start showing through their little white bodies it was pretty apparent.

i've got the firefish cleaned up and quarantined for now, but wtf can i do about the isopods? I guess it's waiting time. From other threads I've read that they may last up to 8 months before dying of starvation....

I'm not sure how to avoid putting these in your tank if they're hiding in the rock or sand - a freshwater dip would kill most of the nice hitchhikers, and it's not a sure killer of the isopods either. Then again, many others have had no problems or maybe they just haven't noticed the isopods yet, since many of the bloodsucking ones are nocturnal. Or maybe I'm just one of the unlucky ones.

Keep an eye on your overflow box as well, since the bigger ones tend to get trapped in there. Also, watch any new fish you stick in therevery closely, and you might want to hold off on buying the higher priced ones to start with. Options are very limited when dealing with these nasty little critters.

to read up on more info, search the forum for "isopod"

I don't want to scare ppl, but this is information I wish I had been aware of earlier, so I figure others should know what to watch for as well. Oh yeah, they have been known to latch onto humans too, so wear gloves.

Good luck!

ps - has anybody else had experience with these little baddies? They seem to be abundant in the gulf area.
 
You can catch them with a turkey baster. While the tank is still dark in the morning put on a lamp to one side of the tank and inspect the glass. The isopods will mainly congregate to the side with the light and can be sucked up with the baster. I cleared my tank in about three weeks by doing this every morning.
Ditto on your observation about the overflow for the adults.
Good luck !
 
Are you talking about the little ones or the big ones? Because the small ones i can't hardly tell from the copepods/amphipods (they were that small), and the large ones I've seen dive for cover the second the flashlight goes on.

I'll certainly give it a try though....losing a few copepods and amphipods would be worth it if I can actually get them all out.

I'm more concerned about the big guys though.....the little ones will starve in a few weeks without a host to feed on, but the big ones can live for months.

Thanks for the suggestion though!
 
Are you talking about the little ones or the big ones? Because the small ones i can't hardly tell from the copepods/amphipods (they were that small), and the large ones I've seen dive for cover the second the flashlight goes on.
Click to expand...

I have caught both like this, but mostly juveniles. In total I caught three adults and probably 15 plus juveniles. You may have to trim the end of the baster to capture the adults. The juveniles were about the size of a grain of rice.
I don't use a flashlight, just a lamp a bit off to the side of the tank to provide some general illumination, and work from the side to avoid throwing a shadow onto the tank. They will flee from a net but I was able to approach them easily from above with the baster, I could almost touch them without them fleeing. Have the bulb already squeezed and allow a little suction to pull them in when the tip of the baster is close to them, then withdraw while still pulling in water, and empty into a net.
Adults are definitely easier spooked but can be captured in the same way.

BTW, never saw the adults attack a fish, only the juveniles.
 
Last edited:
redawg,

it's my understanding that cleaner shrimp aren't very effective at killing off isopods...

highlander,

my juveniles are about as long as 1 mm, so i guess they are a bit smaller than what you dealt with. I'll see if i find tonite though...thanks for the tip.

the big one didn't attach my firefish either, but then again i've seen them go for the larger fish (like tangs) from other threads i've read through. I'll post again if i make any progress.
 
I have isopods too!!! I just got my second shipment last week and have noticed 3 this week. 2 were alive and one was dead. I hate those things. They were fairly big, about the size of a grain of rice with the big black eyes. Freaks me out thinking about them. I got those ones out but I fear there may be more. I read to put a "sacraficial" fish into the tank to let them latch onto. So I put my blue damsel in there to do the dirty work. I know he will be difficult to catch but he was cheap and the white dots should show up on him. I guess I will try the turkey baster idea next if I see little ones. Do cleaner shrimp eat isopods? I didn't think they did
 
Anecdotally, I have heard that cleaner shrimp are ineffective, and I can believe it for adult isopods. However , in my 125, I have 2 skunk and 2 blood cleaners and a while back, I noticed what appeared to be the head of a juvenile pod on the tail of my CBB. No hard proof but it is possible that the one of the shrimp ate the juvenile while cleaning the CBB. This is the only incidence of isopods I have noticed in that tank. My other tank that had all of the pods, has no shrimp FWIW.
 
hrm.....i've got a couple of peppermints that came with the package. I don't suppose they do any cleaning?

Since I won't be adding fish for awhile I suppose another invert or two wouldn't hurt right?
 
I guess not, but would imagine that the pods would have to be attached to a fish before the cleaner could do it's stuff!!!
 
i got my sand outa the ocean.. that's where they came from.. when i added the fish they were flat out attacked.. i watched the cleaner shrimp eat all they could get their claws on.. i don't know who says they aren't effective maybe i'm confused and there's something else small with black eyes that likes to cling onto the side of a fish and suck it's blood.. or maybe my cleaner shrimp grew up next to a nuclear power plant and they're a little warped.. what ever.. my fish are still alive thanks to my 2 cleaner shrimp and i watched it happen..
 
redawg said:
highlander the ones i seen caught were all off fish...
Click to expand...

oops.. i just reread that and realized how it sounds.. the pods where latched onto the fish and the shrimp picked them off.. not the shrimp catching them without the fish
 
redawg.
Your observations certainly validate what I suspected so that is great news, thanks!
Hope to clarify a point though. When you say the ones that you saw caught were "off fish", do you mean that they were free swimming, or that they were on fish and cleaned off?
 
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