Id?

[LarryS]

Sorry for prior post

Hey all:

I have an explosion of some type of "microlife" in my tank. Doesn't look like copepods. Illustration attached (hey - I'm not an artist!). They have straight bodies with 2 long antennae and thin legs, vary from barely visible to almost 1/8" long, some opaque beige some opaque green and they crawl on the glass, substrate and other surfaces. I saw a site where they looked like Isopods, but not sure.

Can anyone ID?

 

[mogurnda]

Here's an image of an isopod I pulled off google.

Most of us see a bunch of teeny stuff like those running around the glass and rocks. Just part of the ecosystem.


PS. I just deleted the extra thread. Hope you don't mind.

 

[LarryS]

mogurnda:

Yep, thats the critter all right. Thanks for that pic. Its fantastic. Do you know, are they food for any other organisms? Are copepods better to have. I can't seem to locate any of those in my ecosystem at this time.

 

[mogurnda]

I really don't know. I have always assumed they make nice food and help to clean up, but it's time for me to do a little homework.

Here goes.

According to Ruppert and Barnes' Invertebrate Zoology, "Most isopods are scavengers and omnivores," although some are herbivores. It's unfortunate that most marine aquarium books focus so much on the few families of parasitic isopods.

Another interesting factoid is that the eggs and larvae are brooded in a marsupium and emerge as postlarvae. They don't have a planktonic stage, which probably explains why they reproduce so well in tanks.

 

[mogurnda]

One more factoid, one that should perk up Ceabhaill's ears, is that gribbles are wood-boring isopods.