Cali Kid Corals

Damn monti eating nudis!!!

Eight

Eight

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After seeing many of my prized monti colonies disappear, I have finally discovered the problem. Monti-eating nudibranchs! These things are really really horrible. They've managed to destroy my True Undata frag, 3/4 of my huge purple lip green monti colony and are attacking various other corals as well.

I bought a green coris wrasse and I think he may be helping. Tonight I also nuked my tank with Flatworm eXit. It's the second treatment and I am using it at 3x strength. (Last time, I did it at 2x strength and I think I put a big dent in the nudis, but it didn't kill all of them.) Lots of little brittle stars are dying, but otherwise, everyone else looks great.

I will follow up with another hard dosing of FWE next week... but otherwise, anyone have any tips on how to kill them? I'm seriously at wits end. These pests are making me hate this hobby.

:(

Jason
 
Don't think FWE will have any effect on monti eating nudis. They are a major PITA but can be conquered. Let me find a link to a post I did about them.
 
No dice on finding my old post. May have been on RC. I had them probably 3 years back now or more and was able to completely erradicate them [and anyone who has seen my tanks knows I have a ton of montis]. I think I only lost 1 monti, though several of them got pretty beat up. Here is what I did

Essentially you need to check the infected montis at night as that is when the nudis tend to come out. The like to hide out in the folds of montis so caps tend to be more prone.

If you can remove the montis themselves (even the ones you may think are not infected) you can dip them in povidone in order to stun the montis and blow them off the corals with a turkey baster. Also helps to take a toothbrush to the infected areas to help get rid of the eggs. Still will require monitering and probably repeating the process a couple of times

If you can't take them out of the tank it becomes much more tricky. For the ones I had on montis that we majorly encrusted, I used a flashlight to spot them at night and began a vigil nightly of pulling them out with a pair of tweezres or a toothpick. You will need to do it more frequently in the beginning (nightly) but you will start to gain ground on them and eventually eliminate them.

Some wrasses (like six-lines) are rumored to help keep them in check but as with anything like this it may be a rumor and/or depend on the specific fish.
 
Thanks seminole for the suggestions. There are several reports of FWE helping and I have done some tests where I took live nudis in a cup of water and added FWE. They definitely died, but it took much higher doses than normal. I'm currently trying a three prong approach of FWE, wrasse and manual siphoning. Siphoning is a lot of work. Each night my gf and I probably take out 20+ nudis. It feels like a bit of an uphill battle. Still, we are gaining a little bit of ground.

<Bleh>
 
Thanks for the suggestion. Anyone know where I can get some potassium permanginate locally? I might add that to my dipping formula.

On a side note... I managed to save over 100 little brittle stars last night. They were all looking very sad writhing in little balls on the sand after I dosed the FWE. I picked clumps of them up with tweezers and threw them into the clean quarantine tank and they all came back. Now I have a 5 gallon tank with 3 huge brittles and tons of babies. It's kinda funny.

Jason
 
Never heard of FWE affecting them. If they died in a dish you experimented on, it might simply be the dosage was so toxic it'd kill anything, I mean hell I can put Kalk in a dish and I'm sure kill any pest in it, doesn't mean dosing kalk is effective on a tank though :)

When I battled them, I basically was over my tank nightly sucking them out one at a time for a couple weeks until I saw no more, of course by the that time 90% of my montiporas on one side of the tank were gone, the other side of the tank luckily was far enough away and my flow wasn't as strong to pull them over.

As to the KMnO4, find a store that deals with Koi fish, they most likely will have it.

I would simply break off as much as you can away from the base, throw them in a QT, and accept the encrusted bases/corals as a loss then after everything is dead, re-glue.
 
Sorry to hear about the nudis. I found them to late in my tank, lost everything, I went monti free for almost a year just to make sure.
 
There are lots of articles/threads about people using FWE to kill nudis on RC and there was an article in Corals magazine (that free one they give out at stores) talking about using it as a treatment too. That said, I did find lots of live nudis this morning, so I think people have mixed results with FWE.

Have you guys heard of nudis eating acropora species as well? I have had some STN in my ORA Red Planet and ORA Bellina frags. I also experienced a very rapid wipeout of my purple milli colony. (I heavily fragged the milli and put it into the frag tank which is plumbed to the main tank and so far the frags have stopped STNing, so I am pretty sure I don't have a water quality problem.)

Mike, I am going to check a pond/koi store today to see if I can find some KMnO4. I think you guys are right, my only option may be heavy fragging, dipping and manual removal.
 
Reef Hobbyist Magazine is what your speaking of, nor Corals :)

I seem to only recall an article on AEFW in RHM, maybe Jim could chime in. Like wise you can search their online copy, but I don't have time.

I am very up on pests, read a ton, etc, and I have never heard of FWE effecting nudibranchs.
 
http://reefhobbyistmagazine.com/archives/vol_1/issue_5/pages/issue_5-14.htm
 
Yup! That's the article... The article talks about FWE on zoa eating nudis, not monti eating ones... so maybe they react differently. It seems to have some effect on my monti eating nudis, but obviously doesn't fully kill them.

In any event... I still got the buggers so I am going to pick up another wrasse (hopefully the two will play nice in my tank) and the potassium stuff today.
 
It's also not the scientific of a study :) I know a marine worm expert (PHD), I'll pick her brain re: FWE use on nudis.
 
Thanks, I really appreciate you asking her advice. I am willing to dose harder if it will in fact have an effect. I noticed that the article talks about dosing 4x recommended strength. I think I dosed more like 3x.

I think I will try doing some controlled tests first before buying 3 more bottles of FWE. :p
 
Thought i would update this to the benefit of others in the club.

I think the FWE at 3x dosage had some effect, but failed at wiping them out. What seems to happen is that the day or two after I heavy dose, the nudis hide, then after four or five days, they come out again.

I did introduce a green wrasse which picks at my colony all day. I suspect he may be helping to reduce their numbers. I do notice that most of the nudis that I find now are smaller ones. I don't typically find lots of bigger ones anymore. That said, I still can pull out 20 a night.

I am in the process of setting up a quarantine tank which I will be moving much of my frags and montis into. In addition, I bought some Potassium Permanganate from TSE Champion Koi in SJ. I have relegated myself to fragging up what remains of my montis and other acros, dipping them in Potassium and keeping them all in quarantine.

Damn I hate these things.
 
Yeah that's what I want to believe too... but for some reason I am seeing similar recession on my acros. Garf Bonsai, ORA RedPlanet, ORA Bellina... these corals were all doing great then for some reason, I am getting STN from the base up. DKH is at 9, CA at 425 or so. Salinity checks out well and I do regular 15% water changes weekly.

Any ideas on what could be causing the STN?
 
I was wondering about salt. I was using Reef Crystals for awhile and thought maybe it could be my salt, so I mixed in some IO and Crystal Sea. I mix it all in a huge 55 gallon garbage container. There is probably some RC still in there.

Are there any reported problems with Reef Crystals?
 
http://www.bareefers.org/discussion/index.php?topic=2773.0

Not saying this is your problem but it sounds very similar. Can't say anything definative that my problem related specific to the salt as there are way to many variables.

http://www.bareefers.org/discussion/index.php?topic=3354.0
 
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