Pod attached to fish?

[leahfiish]

Can anyone id this and recommend a treatment? Will prazipro or cleaner shrimp work?
I suspect it came from my live rock. I noticed it when the fish was in qt (with a piece of live rock) and treated with prazi and it disappeared. I moved this fish to the display on Monday and today I notice it is back. Should I prazipro the display? Freshwater dip it? Cleaner shrimp? I've never seen this before. It is clearly hanging on by its mouth and its body is flapping around and it has 2 beady little eyes.

 

[CC13]

Do you think its ICH?

I have seen pods attach sometimes to fish and I know for sure its not ICH as I QT all fish with medication for 75 days.

 

[leahfiish]

No, it's way too big to be ich.

 

[CC13]

No, it's way too big to be ich.

Is it a new addition to the tank? Was anything new introduced recently? Have you had ICH in your display tank before?

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Google image search
cirolanid isopod

A FW dip may do it. Manual removal (or crush it )if possible.

 

[leahfiish]

Google image search
cirolanid isopod

A FW dip may do it. Manual removal (or crush it )if possible.

Yup that's it. Thanks... Gonna try a freshwater dip if I can catch him.

 

[leahfiish]

I didn't get a chance to catch him before he buried himself for the night, so instead I removed my carbon and took off my skimmer cup to treat with prazipro. I'll check on him tomorro and give another update.

 

[reef lover]

Im not sure prazi will touch these guys...manual removal and starving them out is best. Gl

 

[leahfiish]

So I checked around the tank after lights out and I think I found a dead isopod. And this morning I didn't see anything on the fish but it was early, before the lights were on.

 

[leahfiish]

There was no further signs of the isopod the last few weeks, until today, it's back. And bigger this time.

 

[leahfiish]

5 minutes later and it's gone... looking all over the tank for it to try to net it out.

 

[reef lover]

Ugghh these things are a pain! Any chance u can temp set the fish up on another tank and let the pods starve...

 

[garbled]

They are abominations. I've seen photos of people who tried to catch the fish and instead had the isopod attack their hands. If you just have the one, I would desperately try to catch the fish and dip it off. You probably found a molt, not a dead one. Maybe you are lucky and it's just one demon.

 

[leahfiish]

I am considering bringing my fish to my lfs but have read that these things can survive with months. And people are baiting them out with bottle traps using frozen good and flake so I'm guessing they'll eat that too along with mysis and foods that I've been feeding the corals. I just removed about half of my (newly added) sand to make it easier to spot them. I do regularly look around at night to look at the corals and such and haven't seen any of the isopod so I was pretty shocked to see that one today.

 

[reef lover]

Have u tried the trap yet??

 

[leahfiish]

Not yet but I will once I gather the supplies.

 

[leahfiish]

Update: I have been looking for the isopods every time I look at the tank, especially at night, and any time I fed the fish or corals but had seen no signs of them until tonight. I did a late night (3am) water change and about 20 minutes later as I was putting the lid back on the tank I saw one of the isopods swimming against the front glass. I easily caught it out with a net. I hope this is the last one. This one looks to be about the same size as the one I saw on the fish last time.

In this 2nd pic it's upside down

 

[reef lover]

Evil!! Hope he was the last!

 

[ScooterV]

I hate those things!!! I pulled about 30 out of a tank years ago. I caught some with a trap, some by hand with a net at night, but most removed manually from a maroon clown they all seemed to prefer over the other fish :( They would attach during the night, but usually drop off each morning and hide, so a net and tweezers were ready each night. The clown never seemed bothered and did fine, other than I felt terrible using him as bait. From articles on them they are difficult to starve out because they can eat other things. I hope you only had one!!!

 

[leahfiish]

The fish usually goes to sleep (in the sand) around 8, before the light goes out. I just have a few thin pools of sand and I've seen his tail sticking out at night a few times with no pods. In the morning I checked at dawn once and he was out but no pods. I usually see him at 8:45-9am and haven't seen any pods in the morning on him. It might be wishful thinking but unless they laid eggs and hatched I think this is the last one. Still not adding any new fish for quite a few weeks though until I'm more confident.