Cali Kid Corals

Montipora eating nudibranch

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sfsuphysics

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Ahem.

*GRUMBLE GRUMBLE GRUMBLE GRUMBLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!*

With all that being said, grumble.

Earlier today when Ian was over I kept looking at the white of one my digitata frags and I thought I saw the tell tale signs of "moving" things... I didn't find anything when using a syringe to suck off what I saw... then I did it again.. and blah... nudibranch. So I decided to snap off all my other digitata frags I could, a couple encrusting pieces, and am currently dipping them all and sticking them in QT in a hopes to just starve them out.

Now where did they come from? Originally I thought they were responsible for my confusa death, but then I didn't see anything else for a long long time (literally since last years BACFM) They just now I see something... so what the hell is their life style like? Do they hibernate without food? Do their eggs take forever to hatch? Either way, I did get one montipora species (two actually) from the last meeting but I did dip, it was an end piece, and it was not the coral that was affected.

Either way, looks like I'm going to be pissy for a few days. My sunset better not eatten or I'm going to get really pissy!
 
The eggs take roughly five to seven days to hatch. They like to hide under monti's during the day, you can sometimes see them munching away before lights go on.

Dip like crazy and try to scrape off as many of the eggs as possible (I used the back of an old paring knife). Every monti can be affected if you don't get every one of them including the eggs. The nudi's from last year wiped out every monti I had. I saved what I could by breaking off the sides and edges and literally threw away the base or any place where there is whorl (that's where they lay eggs).

Heavy dips and turkey baster blasting should loosen up the adults but like aefw the dips do nothing to the eggs.

Good Luck Mike!
 
Yeah, the caps I have can't exactly be removed, I'll just hold out and see what gets eaten considering how close it is, probably won't be long. A purple digitata I had I dipped then I saw the little gooey what I'm guessing is an egg sack, didn't look like a whirl, but to be safe I snipped off some arms and tossed the rest.

But that life cycle thing is something that's interesting, I wonder if I can just continuously dip every 5 days and hope to eventually nab them all, of course that doesn't take into account their life cycle of mating.
 
The nudi's like to hang out in the whorls of ... well whorling monti's. The nudi's will eat a bare patch away and lay their eggs on the bottom bare patch.

Dip and blow off with turkey baster they seem to cling on like crazy.
 
Yeah, they're not touching (yet) my caps though, they found a particular orange digitata instead, although I did think I saw some eggs on the bottom of a purple digi I removed and dipped, and atleast one came off something else from the dip.

So whats the recommended dipping regimine for these guys to try and be done with them? once every 5 days? 3 days? I'm guessing that they're some evil son's a bitches and probably are hatched fully ready to reproduce too *grumble*
 
Mike,

Use the Povidone at .5ml/cup or 2ml/liter. That's a low enough dosage that you can do several dips per week without overly stressing your monti. You can shorten the dip time to about 5-10 minutes. That's enough to stun the nudis. Don't bother trying to kill them.

Check your montis like every other day when first clearing out your nudis. Dip as necessary.

If you can quarantine your montis, it helps to have them propped up in the water and well separated so that any nudis stay more isolated on the coral they are on.

Supposedly those things can mate super quickly. You just need to give a couple adults maybe less than a minute, and then they'll be ready to lay eggs. So if you see several adults together, really keep an eye on that particular monti for babies in the next week or two.

Use a toothbrush and scrub the heck out of the montis where you might have eggs. You can rinse the toothbrush in hot tap water so that you don't spread eggs to other montis.

Some people use superglue on the nudis/eggs.

If you have some super exotic underoo monti that you don't want to take a chance with, frag a tiny piece off as far away from the affected area. Several pieces even, and put them in clean quarantine tanks for backups.

6 line wrasse and lunar wrasse are supposed to be good biological control on the nudis. No guarantees to get them all, but can help.
 
Mike that sucks. Thanks for the frags though. I did dip all of them before placing them in the tank. Not sure if I needed to but did it anyway. Hope you get rid of them soon.
 
Well good news is they're kind of easy to spot at night with some blue LEDs shinning on them, and I've pretty damn surgical with the squirty syringe, just instead of squirting I pull back quickly and if they're unaware ... slurp, sucks them up, and I can squirt them into a cup for later torture disposal.

Zis iz zee faze of zee enemy!
p6140043zv4.jpg


And another
p6140046fz2.jpg
 
I feel your pain Mike, I went through it about a year and a half ago. You think you've killed them and boom, like Chucky "their back". I went through a whole bottle of TMPCC, everytime I brushed my teeth it tasted like montipora. It was a nightmare.... I cannot offer advise beyond Norman's, that is the same program I went through. It does suck to brush your coral like heck, but I think that's why they kept coming back on me, I wasn't aggressive enough.
 
Yeah, I nabbed a half dozen that were visible last night, and this morning the coral didn't look like too much additional damage occurred just hope it's not one of those things "For every one you kill, there's at least 10 others"

I'll keep an eye out on it. In the mean time anyone want a frag of an ultra rare never seen before orange swirl digitata? It has orange polyps with a white rim around it :D
 
Sounds like the ulra rare acro I had for a while, complete with cool white spots minus the flesh :)
 
[quote author=GreshamH link=topic=2150.msg21339#msg21339 date=1181927128]
Sounds like the ulra rare acro I had for a while, complete with cool white spots minus the flesh :)
[/quote]
See if Gresham had it, it MUST be rare! He's in the business and everything! :D

Eric: As much as I'd like to help you out, at present they're very few, and I probably deeply impacted their population (at least until new ones hatch) and I really hope that they don't become that numerous that I could just pick them off at will :D
Need a hotline, "Yo, Eric just got some come over! The clock is ticking! " *laugh*
 
I'm always interested in photographing stuff that I've never seen before. Would love to add some pics of them eventually one of these days.

I do hope that you're not literally able to pick them up at will. :D
 
Good Luck Mike.

I had them too about a year back they are a major pain. The only hope you have to erradicate them is to use patience and persistand late night vigils with a flashlight, toothbrush and toothpicks preferably out of the tank. Like wwas said earlier they like to hang out in the folds and in the cravases under the base of the coral. Dipping only does so much good for the PIA's it stuns them but it will by no means kill them nor do anything about the egg sacs. It nearly wiped out every monti colony I had but I was able to save all but 1 though it took several painful months before my tank was free of them and my monti's began to recover.
 
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