cirolanid isopod infested tank

[roricaja]

I found several of these @#$%ers in my 125g FOWLR last night. I have removed all the fish into my qt. All that is left is alot of live rock and a LTA. I plan on starving them for 6 months and putting the fish back in. Does anyone know if the LTA will be affected by the isopods or is it safe.

[marrone]

I found this on the net:

There are only three courses of action in this situation; and I truly am not jesting about these responses. The first is to remove all the fish from the tank and wait the two or three months until you are certain that all the isopods have died from starvation. The second solution is to effectively nuke the tank. Remove all live rock and discard it as the isopods may hide in it, and as some of the isopods bury in the sand, you should also remove and discard the sand.

You may of course take the third option and do nothing. The most likely outcome in this situation will be that the isopods will kill your fish one by one. You may not even know they are attacking a fish until the fish is dead. Some years ago there were several large sharks that washed ashore in Florida. Examination showed that they were all killed by cirolanids that had burrowed into the shark and eaten their hearts.

I would also think of doing Hypso on the tank. You would have to remove your LR and Invert but by droping you SG to 1.007-1.009 that should kill them.

Here the link:
http://www.reefs.org/library/article/clarke_shimek.html

Michael

[roricaja]

yeh, I read that article too, but it says nothing about inverts, only fish. As far as removing the LR and LTA, the isopods can be in the LR as well.

[marrone]

I would take the LR and place it in a pail of salt water with a very high SG and see if that will force them off the rocks, kinda of like how you get rid of Mantis shrimps and other unwanted inverts.