isopods!! need help

second time i've found one in my tank in the last two months, they are pretty drcent sized, clownfish was losing its color so i got it in the net and plucked off the potato looking bug right away, i only find them swimmimg in my tank at night on rare occasions. how can i get rid of them without damaging mushrooms all ofthe stuff natural growing on my rock?? open to all suggestions, thanks!

 

Isopods, if that is what you are seeing is a sign of good tank health. If you do want to get rid of them, a wrasse willl really control their numbers.

They will not attack fish though.

 

That is false. Not all isopods are good, and from what is being explained, this is probably what you are seeing, Epicaridean isopods. Which are bad.

 

http://s1155.photobucket.com/albums/p555/rus10away/?action=view&current=74f66c41.jpg#!oZZ7QQcurrentZZhttp%3A%2F%2Fs1155.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fp555%2Frus10away%2F%3Faction%3Dview%26current%3D74f66c41.jpg
you can see the bruise behind its iowa where the isopod was

 

Wow I stand corrected! Learn something everyday.

You said it was potato looking. It is not a fluke is it?

That being said, a few hungry wrasses will really help wipe out the population.

 

Interesting article and kind of scary! I hope to never see the tropical Aegid! http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2002-05/rs/

 

Here you go folks, finally caught one of the evasive little bastards, well I probably shouldn't say little, this thing was HUGEE! He had the nerve to attack in daylight, which is very strange because I have never seen one out during the day.. and it kind of worries me because it might mean they are getting even more desperate to feed. I took me forever to catch the fish so I had to put all of my live rock and polyps in a corner in order to net Humphrey (my clown, yes I named him). To my horror, after taking the fish out of the net I didn't even have to pry the isopod off of his fin, the thing jumped off and started crawling up my arm! This one is easily 3 times bigger than any other one I've seen sucking the blood out of my fish. I might keep him a while to see how fast they multiply and what else they might eat. But for now, I am certain there must be more in my sand and live rock and am still as helpless as when I first saw one a few months ago.
Here are some pictures of it, not something you would want swimming around your tank to say the least.
http://i1155.photobucket.com/albums/p555/rus10away/419e1e10.jpg
http://i1155.photobucket.com/albums/p555/rus10away/ce303bd5.jpg
http://i1155.photobucket.com/albums/p555/rus10away/30542f00.jpg
http://i1155.photobucket.com/albums/p555/rus10away/d1e568e2.jpg

 

Good work catching him. Hopefully it is the only one.

 

Kinda scary looking.



Just an FYI: If you want to post pics and have them show up in the post, copy the HTML code that photobucket gives you and paste in the text field where you type the post.

Makes it a whole lot easier than we thread-readers copying each link into a new window.

Here's an example