Parasite identification needed.

[chadscharf]

We've had issues in our main display with fish originally which quickly died from some kind of parasite (they were the very first fish introduced after the tanks initial 90 day cycle). It's been over a month since then and we've let everything cycle out without adding anything new, and now we have feeder ghost shrimp just chillin' in the sump (food for a different tank), and sure enough, I found this thing attached to one of the feeder shrimp today.

Anyone have any idea what this is? It looks like a little rollie pollie and it was darn near clutched onto this poor little ghost shrimp.

I'm not sure what it is or what I need to do to get rid of them (if there are more). I know they did not come in the bag of ghost shrimp as I carefully inspected them (to count) and they're clear, so not like they can hide anything; whatever it was, it came with those first fish, or perhaps hitchhiked on one or 2 small live rocks we had in the tank (most was dry rock, we only used a couple of small live rocks to seed when we started the tank).

 

[chadscharf]

Oh man, please tell me I do not have an isopod issue?!?

If so, how do I manage that? Do i have to kill everything off and start over again? :-(

 

[S14Swap240sx]

i had a shrimp which developed an isopod like that shortly after bring it into my tank.

here is an article on something similar
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2002-05/rs/index.php

the fact that what you have is most likely a female ispod, i would be worried (after skimming the article).

i had no negative or ill effects with my shrimp who maintained that pod on its side for like 2-3 months, and after it died i could not actually find it so im assuming the isopod died with it because its been 6 months and have not seen anything on fish.