what's this little thing?

[mallorieGgator]

So, there were 3 or so of these in the tank after lights went out eating algae on the sides of the tank. Sucked them up with a medicine dropper and they zoom around pretty fast. Are they copepods?

[mutateddogbone]

those big black eyes make it look like an isopod of some kind. isopods are BAD!

here is link http://www.wetwebmedia.com/isopodid.htm

[DJREEF]

Not all Isopods are bad. I'm afraid that one might be, though. It looks like a juvenile cirolanids. They're nasty little fish parasites. One true way to test this is to stick a finger in there. If they latch on to you and start digging in then you'll know.

DJ

[mallorieGgator]

We had 2 damsels in the tank for a week and they didn't seem effected. They are on the tank glass and seem to be feeding on the algae. How do I get rid of them?! Now I'm freaking out a bit because this is a new tank and I already see 3 or 4 of them on the glass!

[RcToners]

Oh buddy,

I am sorry to say but you are in bad bad shape. Those are 100% cirolanid isopods. I just had to tear down my 150 gal because of them last week. There are no predators of these isopods, no treatment that wont really hurt your system. Here are your options,

1. tear the tank down, kill the rock, substrate and start over.
2. Interceptor will kill them in roughly 20x the recommended dose but obviously will also kill your hermits, snails, sand bed and so on causing a huge cycle.
3. Do nothing and your fish WILL die.
4. You can try and trap them over the next several months, there is a simple trap that you can build and you will catch a few each night but you wont ever be 100% sure you dont have a female in the tank with a huge egg sack getting ready to hatch. They will not die in fresh water so hypo salinity will not kill them. I ran a test with one I caught, I put it in a bowl of fresh water and after 12 hours once it was introduces to salt water it was fine. I had to pull my two clown fish out several times to remove these from them. They attatch to fish at night and let go and hide once the lights come on. a normal flash light will scare them off so you need to be very sneaky when trying to see them.

There are a couple of other people on here you have dealt with them by doing traps but they are still early in the game and there is no way to know if they got them all yet. I tried to trap them over several weeks and it was just a futile attempt.

When I tore down my system I ran fresh water through it for three days, then I added vinigar to my entire system and let it soak for 24 hours. Once I cleaned everything after I found dozens and dozens of these everywhere. Thery were in my pumps, skimmer, return line, rock, sand, everywhere. These are a nightmare and are very common in shallow waters of florida and are often in live rock that came from the coast line.

[RcToners]

PS.

They dont eat algae, they flock to the glass at night when they are in search of food. Take a close close look at your fish and I would be willing to bet you wil see marks from where these have attatched to your fish already.

Welcome to your nightmare,

http://forums.saltwaterfish.com/foru...olanid-isopods
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-02/bp/index.php

[DJREEF]

Originally Posted by mallorieGgator

We had 2 damsels in the tank for a week and they didn't seem effected. They are on the tank glass and seem to be feeding on the algae. How do I get rid of them?! Now I'm freaking out a bit because this is a new tank and I already see 3 or 4 of them on the glass!

See if you can get better pix, or take them to a local university that has zoology dept. Get them definitively ID'd first b4 you start bug bombing the system. There are things that'll kill them, but you'll eradicate every other beneficial crustacean in the tank at the same time.

DJ

[RcToners]

Originally Posted by DJREEF

See if you can get better pix, or take them to a local university that has zoology dept. Get them definitively ID'd first b4 you start bug bombing the system. There are things that'll kill them, but you'll eradicate every other beneficial crustacean in the tank at the same time.

DJ

No need for an ID on them, they are cirolanid isopods, they are easy to spot and stick out like a sore thumb. I have seen several hundread of them over the last three weeks. There is only one treatment that I know of and that is interceptor but like I said and dj said it will kill everything else.

[RcToners]

Look familiar ??

[DJREEF]

Crap, I was really trying to be optimistic.

DJ

[RcToners]

Originally Posted by DJREEF

Crap, I was really trying to be optimistic.

DJ

Tell me about it My 150 was tore apart just days ago due to these. Its in shambles right now smelling up my house, I am hoping to get it going again tomorrow. At least I built a new bigger sump while its been tore down.

[williamh]

Can you remove the fish, so they dont have a food source? William

[RcToners]

Originally Posted by williamh

Can you remove the fish, so they dont have a food source? William

Yes, they will starve in roughly 2 to 6 months

[A sea K]

mallorie, where dou get your fish and corals from? I'm local to you and can only assume we shop at the same LFS. Do you have any idea how or where you got them from?

[mallorieGgator]

I have no fish in my tank right now. I used 2 damsels to help with the cycle and that's it. I will just wait it out and let them starve vs. tearing down my entire tank which has only been running for a week and a half. A Sea K i'll PM you and let you know.

[mallorieGgator]

Also, is it possible they came on the 2 damsels? I'm pretty irritated now as I was really looking forward to adding fish in a few weeks. I have no snails or anything that I added but at the same time, I don't want to kill my LR. I'd rather wait it out and let them starve. Can I still add inverts and shrimp? Or should I not add anything for 2+ months?

[RcToners]

Originally Posted by mallorieGgator

Also, is it possible they came on the 2 damsels? I'm pretty irritated now as I was really looking forward to adding fish in a few weeks. I have no snails or anything that I added but at the same time, I don't want to kill my LR. I'd rather wait it out and let them starve. Can I still add inverts and shrimp? Or should I not add anything for 2+ months?

Highly unlikely they came on the damsles as they would have been pretty easy to spot.

You cant add shrimp due to the fact they eat the molts.

If you dont have a CUC and are not done with the cycle buy interceptor, do a huge water change a couple of times and you are right back on track

[mallorieGgator]

How do you dose interceptor? I dose it, then wait for how long before I do a WC? Is the interceptor going to kill my bivalves and limpits and everything else cool tha came with my LR? I just emailed the LFS and she said they've never had isopod poblems and the LR is collected at 50-60 ft. All of their fish are super healthy and I trust this LFS to be honest.

[Sugar Magnolia]

From that picture it is impossible to tell with 100% certainty that they are cirolanid isopods. Is it an isopod? Yes, no doubt. It could be a harmless sphaeromatid isopod which is similar in appearance to a cirolanid. They are harmless scavengers.

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2002-05/rs/

[mallorieGgator]

Well, after reading that article (which is awesome btw!) I'm pretty sure they are the bad isopods. They have very defined black eyes and the butt pointy things are shaped just like the picture in the article. Oh how wonderful.

[RcToners]

Originally Posted by mallorieGgator

Well, after reading that article (which is awesome btw!) I'm pretty sure they are the bad isopods. They have very defined black eyes and the butt pointy things are shaped just like the picture in the article. Oh how wonderful.

Trust me they are the bad ones I am sure if you read the reefkeeping article I posted earlier you know by now they are the bad ones. Like you said they are easy to spot due to the eyes and the rear end.

I started by using a trap, I caught several of these over about a week. Well 3 or 4 days went by when I caught 0 and I thought to myself wow that was easy. I was wrong, about 2 days after that I see 2 of them attatched to one of my clowns. The problem with the trap is that it can appear that you have caught them all and you wont get any in your trap for days and days then out of the blue WHAM you have several hundred due to an egg sack hatching. If you look closely you will probably find several in your sand bed between the glass and sand, they like to hide there during the day. They also hide very deep within the rocks, I blew several of them out of my rock once I nuked the tank and they were several inches deep in the rock holes and what not .

My suggestion and I know it sucks but you are very early in the game with the new tank, I was in your spot just a little over a month ago, I had just finished my cycle and I should have killed it from the very start but I didnt want to kill my rock either. It can take 6 months or more to trap them and you basically need to look every night. I would put a trap in the tank following the instructions in the above article, see how many you get in one night, its a crap shoot however because if they have eaten recently they wont come out for another week or so possibly earlier. melves reef has a great article on dosing interceptor for red bugs however you need to up the dose about 20x for these. I have approx 175 gal between my main tank and old sump and I filled the tank with fresh water and after 48 hours I added 8 gallons of white vinegar. I let the vinegar sit in the tank with the fresh water for another 24 hours. You would not believe how many came out of the rocks. I pulled my substrate the day before putting the fresh water in and after 24 hours you could see dozens swimming around in the garbage can that I put my substrate in. They were even alive and clinging to the filter socks from my sump after being out of the water for over a day.

There are just a lot of unknowns when using the trap method-- you have no idea how long it will take (months) and you will never really know for sure if you got them all. In the article it said that he went over 20 days without getting any in the trap and then suddenly there was a population explosion and it started all over again.

Just be sure you really think it through. Killing everything and re cycling the tank could be much quicker than trapping.

[Sugar Magnolia]

Originally Posted by mallorieGgator

Well, after reading that article (which is awesome btw!) I'm pretty sure they are the bad isopods. They have very defined black eyes and the butt pointy things are shaped just like the picture in the article. Oh how wonderful.

Well that's discouraging. Does your camera have macro capabilities? Next time you see one, grab it an try to get a macro shot of it. There are several people here on RC that can give you a difinitive yay or nay as to whether it is a cirolanid. Like I said, your original images are quite blurry. I just want you to get confirmation before you resort to drastic measures.

[mallorieGgator]

That picture is with a 60mm macro lense. This thing was TINY. About the size of the eye of a small sewing needle. I am going to try the trap method as suggested by my LFS because using interceptor is 1. pretty expensive as I am on a college student budget and 2. Not good because I have such nice LR I don't want to kill everything on it. I'd honestly rather use the trap + wait 5 mos than to kill everything in the tank. After all, the hobbies about patience right? Can I still add corals, shrimp, and a CUC?
Also, they wouldn't have eaten in 3 days since I took the cycling damsels back on Monday.

[RcToners]

Originally Posted by mallorieGgator

That picture is with a 60mm macro lense. This thing was TINY. About the size of the eye of a small sewing needle. I am going to try the trap method as suggested by my LFS because using interceptor is 1. pretty expensive as I am on a college student budget and 2. Not good because I have such nice LR I don't want to kill everything on it. I'd honestly rather use the trap + wait 5 mos than to kill everything in the tank. After all, the hobbies about patience right? Can I still add corals, shrimp, and a CUC?
Also, they wouldn't have eaten in 3 days since I took the cycling damsels back on Monday.

As previously stated, no you can not add shrimp because the cirolanids eat shrimp molts. As for adding corals, it depends on what kind. The cirolanids eat any meaty substance so if you need to supplement the corals you plan on getting with anything meaty they're definitely out of the question.

Also hermits are kind of out as well due to the fact if one dies the cirolanids will eat it.

I wish you the very best of luck, these things are nasty and I am honestly surprised your LFS as even heard of them .

[Sugar Magnolia]

Mallorie, did the one you caught roll up into a little ball when prodded?