What the he!! was this???

[Shultz]

Got a Banggai yesterday from LFS, must stress it came home FINE from him...

Got up this morning & it has a lump attached to it, couldn't really see whether it was part of the fish or not, looked not though.....

It was suggested a fresh water dip might remove it if it wasn't part of the fish, now considering I killed a strawberry fish last week trying to remove it from my tank I was more than a little apprehensive about this!!

Anyways got the water ready, took 5 mins to catch the Banggai & dipped him, within a few sec's the "lump" was moving around the fish! But it wouldn't let go... After a min the Banggai started to look stressed so I got him in the net again & managed to just pull this thing off

It looks like a woodlice with a nasty set of jaws at the front & shrimp like swimming gear at the rear & boy can it move!

Its full of blood from my Cardinal, But atleast its off & the Cardinal doesn't look to unhappy now its back in the tank... So fingers crossed he'll be ok?

Any thoughts as to just what it is? I can try & take a picture of it in the test tube if anybody wants a closer look?

Cheers Shelton.

 

[Atari]

Sounds like an isopod.. nasty little buggers!

Oops just saw the pic.. yep it's an isopod.

 

[Shultz]

I presume it came from my LR? Why didn't it go for either the strawberry fish or the clown???

Anymore info on this bugger just for curio?

Cheers Shelton.

 

[GrndHog]

I pulled this from my Kole Tang about 5 months ago, and yes its from the LR or LS.

 

[bound_for_obx]

I got a shipment of live rock on friday and found one in the bottom of the box. Last night I found 2 more inside my tank. They are Cirolanid or Aegid Isopods. I read an article about them in the Marine Fish & Reef 2004 Annual yesterday. They are truly nasty little buggers. They attach themselves to fish and suck the fish's blood and eat flesh. They swim incredibly fast and are darn near impossible to catch. The article indicated that the best course of action was to remove all fish from the tank for a period of at least 3 months but preferably 6 months! And let the Isopods starve to death. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

 

[GrndHog]

You can catch them, the way I caught the last two of mine was to watch the fish that the pod is attached to until it falls off. usually a few hours after the light come on. When it falls off just net them, they arent that fast!!