Isopods

Caoineag · 04-10-2006, 09:43 AM

Yeck, so I as of this weekend, our isopods decided to attack our puffer so I will be researching traps to get them out of the aquarium. Tank has been running for four months, two of which it was cycling without fishies so I know letting the tank run fallow won't work(these suckers are the opportunistic ones, they can feed on detritus while waiting for food to reappear).

Can't be freshwater dipping my poor puffer everyday so traps it is (he is pretty good at dislodging them himself so the dips would require him to tolerate them for longer than he does).

Strange thing is they only go after him(I assume because he is the only one hunting in the sand for food during the night and is scaleless). I have two other fish who spend enormous amounts of time in contact with the sand and nothing there yet.

If anyone has a trap design that they think is best, please let me know. I am sure I will be using traps for a couple of months to come

ChrisPrusha · 04-10-2006, 09:58 AM

Dang, I have never heard of that happening before. I'm sorry, I don't know what to tell you, but I'd like to tag along nonetheless.

Caoineag · 04-10-2006, 10:32 AM

http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-02/bp/index.php

So far this is what I am thinking of doing because I figure a guy this obsessed has to have figured out what works and what doesn't.

Thanks Chris, it does suck because I saw these guys the first time prior to adding fish but they had been already ordered. However, the only way to tell if they are the kind that will occasionally feast on a fish is to add a fish.

The worst part is my puffer has been in there for a month, my jawfish two months and this is the first time they have attacked anyone. I figure the puffer must have gone digging in their nest area to have resulted in this sudden attack since they are opportunistic. I wonder how many of them he ate?

tdwyatt · 04-10-2006, 10:37 AM

Placing some fresh low-oil fish flesh in a weir will attract them, but usuaslly it attracts every scasvenger in the tank as well. I remember reading that Martin Moe used this method of capturing them in a system he was treating. Look in the "Systems and Invertebrates" book for some suggestions, I will look through Steven Spotte for you tonight.

HTH

Caoineag · 04-10-2006, 10:47 AM

Thanks Tom,

I appreciate any help I can get.

Melissa · 04-12-2006, 12:33 PM

Not sure what other fish you will be adding to the tank, but I had TONS of isopods before. My fish have eaten them. I have a mystery wrasse, coris wrasse, leopard wrasse (which I don't recommend you buy) and a mandarin dragonette.

All of these guys have the potential to prey on benthic crustaceans. A coris wrasse sounds like your best bet with a puffer. But I should also point out that I didn't ever see the isopods in my tank on any fish. They may have been completely harmless.

Caoineag · 04-12-2006, 01:11 PM

Sounds like you had the scavenger kind. I do plan on a mandarin eventually (not with a puffer but in that tank) but would not trust a fish without teeth to properly kill this type. I have heard too many stories of fish eating them whole and then being eaten from the inside out. Not willing to run that risk. I do think the puffer took out the two bigger ones because he only ever has one on him anymore that he dislodges(its fairly tiny).Either that or the two slightly bigger ones are pregnant females about to overload my system

I am afraid to fw dip him because puffers can be extremely sensitive to that and it doesn't always work so there is the potential of stressing him to death for nothing. Can't hold him and pluck because if he freaked out and sucked air it could kill him. QT wouldn't have helped him because it came from the system itself.

I have the option of hunting it with a fine mesh net which I am beginning to think wouldn't be too bad a plan considering my nearly nonexistent options and the inverted pop bottle trick. I will probably try both this weekend when I can buy supplies to try them out.

At least at the moment there is only one.

But why did he have to develop a taste for the only fish I can't treat with the easy treatments?

Caoineag · 04-18-2006, 05:22 PM

Well, they are gone, before the weekend came, they disappeared and haven't been seen since. So unless they have been breeding for five days, my puffer ate them.

Why is it that every pest I seem to have is dinner for my puffer?

ChrisPrusha · 04-18-2006, 06:28 PM

Good news! w0000t!!

Geoff · 04-18-2006, 07:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Caoineag

Well, they are gone, before the weekend came, they disappeared and haven't been seen since. So unless they have been breeding for five days, my puffer ate them.

Why is it that every pest I seem to have is dinner for my puffer?

because everything is on the menu for a puffer.

G~

isabellaspuffers · 05-14-2007, 06:00 PM

WEll puffers eat snails the size of there eye and also blood worms sometime they love freezed shrimp

and goast shrimp also put a little bit of fresh sea salt in your tank

they will live longer

isabellaspuffers · 05-14-2007, 06:03 PM

also puffers are aggressive if the tail is almost off get the puffer in another tank! i have too green spotted puffers too they are munch like dwarfs thats them < in the picture my too angels!

mabe.....

Isopods

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