Isospod Question

messy1messmer

messy1messmer

New member
Hi
My question is in responce to a problem with isospods killing fish. I was recently talking to a biology professer who is a reef geek to and she thought maybe to ask you the questions i had.
1. Will red bug treatment work with isospods and if so what will affected besides them.
2. I have my second tank set up for moving my fish over to, I does need some live rock in it. Would i be able to take some rock out of my isospod tank and treat some water in a pail and dip that rock in it to kill the isospods that might hiding in it.
3. If last question would work could i treat the pail of water with copper and dip the rock and after dipping it rinse it with freshwater to make sure all is off. Or would i be able to just dip the rock in freshwater to kill the isospods.
As far as what my teacher thought she didnt think the freshwater dip would kill the coriline algea on the rock, and she wasnt sure but didnt think the copper would eather.
thank you so much for any help you might give.

i have also been without fish in my reef for about 3 weeks now.
 
1. Interceptor will kill all the crustaceans in your tank, not just isopods. Since it was designed as a dewormer, it's probably a good bet that it will also kill at least the roundworms in the tank too.
2. The interceptor treatment takes about 5 hours IIRC, so it would be much more than just a "dip." Once again you would be killing more than just the isopods.
3. If you dip the rock in copper, you will kill pretty much all of the inverts on it and you won't be able to use the rock in a tank with inverts again. The rock will absorb the copper and then slowly leach it out. The effects of copper are cummulative, so even if the rock is leaching out just trace amounts of copper, it may still be enough to kill inverts over time.
Dipping the rock in FW is also a good way to kill everything on the rock, though you will eventually be able to use it in an invert tank again. I can say from experience that FW can kill coralline. I can't say for sure about the coralline, but I would suspect that copper would kill it too since copper is often used as an algacide.

I think your best bet is to just starve the bugs out.
 
im pretty cool with starving them out, but would i be able to freshwater dip a couple pieces of rock and put it in my new 30 gallon and not worry about the isospods. i mean will the freshwater dip kill the isospods. that all im concendered with. the only thing that will die with the red bug treatment are the bugs and crustations. no coral, mushrooms or soft coral. will it kill the bristle worms and that stuff to. thanks steve
 
Fresh watter dipping will turn your live rock into dead rock.

It may kill the isopods but will force you to cure your rock again or take the risk of killing everything in the tank in which it is placed. Not worth the risk.

It has been stated by some that Dragonface pipefish eat redbugs.
 
that would be worth trying but i cant put any fish in reef tank. i want to starve them out(isospods). i think the interceptor treatment might be the only way. i just dont know it will affect my live sand bed(bristle worms and that stuff).
 
Re: Isospod Question

messy1messmer said:
Hi
1. Will red bug treatment work with isospods and if so what will affected besides them.
2. I have my second tank set up for moving my fish over to, I does need some live rock in it. Would i be able to take some rock out of my isospod tank and treat some water in a pail and dip that rock in it to kill the isospods that might hiding in it.
3. If last question would work could i treat the pail of water with copper and dip the rock and after dipping it rinse it with freshwater to make sure all is off. Or would i be able to just dip the rock in freshwater to kill the isospods.
As far as what my teacher thought she didnt think the freshwater dip would kill the coriline algea on the rock, and she wasnt sure but didnt think the copper would eather.
thank you so much for any help you might give.

i have also been without fish in my reef for about 3 weeks now.
Click to expand...

I have been battling cirolanid isopods in my tank for over 6 months now. Unfortunately starving them out is probably your best option.

I have been testing a variety of things to see what will kill the cirolanids in somewhat controlled conditions. I don't have my data with me so I can't comment on exact figures, but here is what I found:

1. The interceptor treatment does not work very well at killing the isopods. It did possibly kill some of mine, but the vast majority withstood the treatment for days. For a treatment time that long you are going to kill off tons of other things in your main tank.

2. Freshwater dips will kill them, but it takes a long time. The minimum amount of time it took to kill an isopod for me was 10 minutes. Several of them lasted almost an hour. I also dipped one in FW until it was no longer moving(10 minutes) and I put it back in SW and it recovered in less than a minute.

A freshwater dip of your live rock for 10+ minutes is going to kill just about everything on it and will result in a large cycle in your tank and basically dead live rock.

3. Copper is going to make your rock worthless, I would avoid it.

I hope to write up my results at some point so everyone can see them, just haven't had the time lately and still doing some tests unfortunately.

Another tip, do not feed ANY meaty food into the tank with the isopods, they could be the scavenging kind like mine and live off that even with no fish. It is also a good idea to remove any creature that molts (crabs, shrimp) as my isopods feed off those as well.

Brian
 
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