Parasite Isopods/Copepods

My sympathy goes out to your Clown too Doc. I actually was watching my tank at the time and witnessed my parasitic isopod 'attack' my shrimp...NOT a pretty site at all. Perhaps my biggest lesson learned- the diversity of life (good and unfortunately bad) introduced into our tanks when we use LR.

 

And people wonder why I don't use live rock....ever! Hopefully, this will help you.

Pills, Parasites, and Predators; Isopods in the Reef Aquarium by Ronald L. Shimek, Ph.D. - Reefkeeping.com
Cirolanid Isopod Capture Techniques, Feeding Habits and Mortality Testing by Brian Plankis - Reefkeeping.com

 

Great articles, thank you for these. I believe I have some Cirolanids to capture this weekend.

 

Oh your poor clown!! That looks horrible. I can't believe how big that blood sucker is. Must have been a disturbing sight for you!

 

Not everyone does

 

just throwing this out there but last week i droped my nori clip to the bottom of my tank so i just stuck my hand in and grabbed it didn't think anything of it, an hour later i'm driving to go golfing and my hand is itchy in one small spot, when i scratched it i felt something.... i looked and i had a small clear squishy thing stuck to me and it was from what i gather sucking my blood. I have never seen any on my fish but some how i got one on my hand!

 

Very weird, from what I've read there are some more aggressive species that would try to eat a human hand, but only after it would be much bigger (1in +). If it was small and squishy it could have been a number of other things (I'm thinking hydroid or other small Cnidarian).

 

but wouldn't that kind of parasite be found in like well water or rain water?? i always use RO/DI so hope i don't have a parasite problem that i don't know about. But yeah it was very small like the ball on a pin head. it also looked round or maybe was just coiled up to look that way. Freaked me out! now i have some aquarium gloves!