parasitic Isopods (SH wood ticks, yuck)

[Sea~Horse~Whisperer]

(NOT MY PERSONAL SEA HORSES.........)



I work at an LFS and we got in 6 Erectus sea horses. They are in a QT tank right now. I found parasitic isopods on them. I tried a freshwater dip to remove them, but they wouldn't come off. I had to manually remove them with a tweezers. (reminded me of a wood tick, yuck) I applied biobandage to the spots the isopods were attached to. I'm not sure if I got them all. Some are very tiny, tip of a pen tiny. Some were the size of a pencil eraser.

Is there anything I can do to ensure all of them are gone?
Is there a parasite medication that will kill them?
How bad are they for the sea horses?
I'm assumeing that they suck the blood out of the ponies?
Any suggestions for ensureing they are all gone?

Since they came from the company we get most of our fish from, you'd think they would have noticed them? I know they are CB, they ate P.E. Mysis right away. WE ( my boss) will NOT be ordering them from this company in the future. The horses are BEAUTIFUL, but the isopods have us worried. No live stock should be delivered like that. I don't even know how they didn't notice them.

Thank you for the help. Again.

Angie

[dsfdbutterfly]

Angie,

I did a lot of reading on parasidic pods when I first started my reef tank. Most pods that are parasidic live with it's host and don't kill it. However, not knowing the type of pods they are/were this cannot be for certain. Manual removal is the only method as they "hook" into their host. Any dip strong enough to kill the pod would more than likely kill the host too. The next question would be that if these little guys are captive raised then how did they come in contact with parasidic pods in the first place. Anything in the dealers system would be suspect and if they had pods the size of erasers they were not new additions. There are thousands of pods out there and by the numbers there are few that are parasidic. For a dealer to have them in their tank and then to be shipping live stock out with them is irresponsible. I hope everything works out for u and the store. Please help the rest of us out and do all that u can to report this dealer to whomever the authorities are in regulating the business.

Angie

[Sea~Horse~Whisperer]

My boss said she will call them. I don't know if she will or not. Like a lot of the LFS owners out there, I'm not sure if she cares enough to do anything about it. I will "try" to find the invoice the next time I work. If I find it I will let everyone know where they came from.

My boss is nice, she just doesn't care enough to do anything about it. She hired me part time to take care of the saltwater dept. because everything was dying. She wont set up QT systems and all of the tanks are on the same system. The only tank that is "off line" is the sea horse tank. I made sure that one was seperated because her tanks run on the warm side and I knew the ponies couldn't handle that. She only has a sponge filter in the pony tank, and she won't let me add anyother filteration. It ticks me off. Hire me to care for the salty critters, but don't let me do anything. I love working there, but I don't think I will beable to do it long.

Angie

[JustDavidP]

Lots o' Angie goin on

I agree..manual removal is your best measure. If you plan on keeping the display tank for ponies only, think about a UV sterilizer on the system. It will do wonders in reduction of any parasites that reproduce.

I would venture to guess that the nasty buggers were introduced with a wild caught fish. I've seen a lot of supposed "tank raised" fish that I question. Also, some LFS tend to put pipe fish in the seahorse sales tanks. The pipe fish are more often wild caught and can and will introduce parasites.


D