Id

[ibjmg]

heres a pic of one of my bartlett anthias got home from work today and her tail fin is gone.... top gone bottom half gone bottom one has 2 white things on her not ICH .they are about 1/8 long and 1/16 wide I cant tell how thick they are since it wont stay still.how you can even see it in the picture.

can someone give me an Idea of what this is?

should I put her in QT?

[Ninong]

White things of that size are probably parasitic isopods. Some of these can be extremely dangerous but those are usually a little larger than that. There are a large number of different species but it's the Cirolanids that are the real bad guys.

[Ninong]

Jerrod,

On second thought, it could be a Cirolanid. They do come in various sizes.

Try to remove the fish for inspection if possible. You may be able to remove these things manually with a tweezers. I'm not sure what the recommended best practice is for dealing with these things and Dr. Ron's site is down right now.

[ibjmg]

OK just spent the last 1/2 hour trying to catch her 2'' fish
6 foot tank......
It looks as if I could pull those off with tweezers. If I could catch it.

in the mean time should I worry about all my other fish??

[ibjmg]

who what where when how


can you give a link?

[Ninong]

This is the best I can do. That's something by Dr. Ron from February 2000. He has written about these more recently but he doesn't have a website right now because he's in the process of changing servers.

[ibjmg]

anybody got any fish traps secrets

been trying to get this fish out for three hours

[JohnS_323]

I heard of a cheesy DIY fishtrap that works if you're patient. Basically, take a piece of 1 1/2" PVC about 4" long. Drill a bunch of holes in it. Put a cap on one end and a long piece of string on the other. Put the trap in the tank (maybe with some food in it) and wait . . . . . and wait . . . . . and wait . . . . . Eventually the fish will investigate it. Once it swims in, pull up on the string quickly and pull the trap out.

I never tried it, but it sounds plausible.

Good luck. Parasites can be nasty business.

[zhenya]

Jerrod,

Here is an article by Dr.Ron Shimek from 2002 with some pictures and description of various isopods.
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2002-05/rs/index.php

I sure hope it is not a Cirolanid that you saw on your fish, however, if it is an isopod and you see it attached to a fish it is most likely the evil Cirolanid isopods and yes, all fish would be in danger.

[CSeaSee]

This works for me...
Get a CLEAR container (pitchers work really well) and put food your fish likes and recognizes at the bottom of it. Put the pitcher in the tank, towards the top, leaving just enough clearance between the top of the pitcher and the top of the overall waterline for the fish to wriggle through. Attach the pitcher to the tank with a strong cleaner magnet. Wait. Sooner or later, the fish usually figure out how to get in, but can't get out again.

[Reefland]

I have posted recently that I feed my fish using a fish net. The reason is that I strain all of the water from frozen food that I thaw through the fish net, leaving just the brine and mysis in the net. After a couple of days of putting the net in the tank to release the shrimp, I could easily catch any fish in our tank. You might not have the time to go through this adjustment period of your fish getting used to the net but I thought I would mention it anyway.