Reef nutrition

Montipora nudi battle including tank rebuild

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richiev

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Last week I was sitting at my desk and I saw an awful sight, a nudibranch crawling across my frag tank glass. Having had monti eating nudis in a different tank, I immediately knew what it was and squished it (that tank was torn down and everything bleached/muriatic acided before reuse).

Later I went around, lifting, shining lights, and dipping, and my frag tank that's growing things crazy well right now has a decent size monti eating nudi infestation. Big bummer, but at least having a frag tank has done its job keeping this out of my display. Also a double bummer because everything I've gotten recently has been through club related things, leaving me with a couple guesses where it came from, none of which I'm stoked about.

Regarding solving this, I've got a giant purple cap colony which is the main thing I want to save. Beyond that I have a lot of pretty large montis (digis, encrusting, setosas, a other caps, ...). In a fit of rage I tossed some initially, but once I found it was already widespread I've been trying to fight.

My current plan:
  • As energy allows, kill anything I see by scraping it with a pick, and scraping any surrounding tissue to fight eggs
  • Dip, though coralrx which is my main dip doesn't seem very effective, and I need a bigger container to do more at once. Also this is not doable on the giant colony. It's attached to a stand alone rock, but I'd need to make like 2 gallons of dip (maybe I'll do that though)
  • Frag the smaller colonies, cutting above any bite or dead areas, tossing the rest
  • I am going to get a yellow coris wrasse ASAP
The other thing here is I have a new frag tank that I'm planning on switching to. I need to plumb it and finish building a sump and such, but my original plan was swap everything over to it. However, now I'm not sure what to do.

I don't have enough lights to run the current frag tank and the new one, but I could possibly rig something up for a bit.

For instance, toss a cheap power head in the current tank, leave a light over it, and only transfer the cleanest stuff I have to the other tank for a bit. Such as a clean monti, new frag racks, other corals. Realistically though, I'm not going to be able to do that long enough, nor clean other frags enough, that I'd confidently stop anything from transferring.

Any suggestions on what to do?
 
I've never dealt with monti eating nudies so I can't say from experience, but I'd just frag off healthy parts, toss the rest, and very closely inspect those pieces in quarantine for a while before moving them to the new frag tank. Montis generally grow back pretty fast and it would destroy me morally if after all the dipping and inspecting work, one made it through and multiplied.
 
I’ve never dealt with this either. Last year I dealt with AEFW. How I beat those was to figure out the life cycle and dip in the time intervals. Took 5 weeks but I beat them. I dipped everything. Hopefully that helps.
 
animals travel further around in the tank
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That's the main issue I'm struggling with in figuring out how to deal with it. The fragging and clean new tank setup certainly will help, but I don't know that I can actually expect it solves it.

SUUUUUPPPPER annoying

I'll check out that linked post
 
Darkxerox said:
I remember listening to a podcast from with some experienced reef keepers and they talked about how people forget these animals travel further around in the tank unlike obligate flatworms so you have to starve them for weeks to ensure they're gone, not just spot treat to eradicate.
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From what I remember, they will starve out after 2-3 months of no montis in your tank. So I always thought I would just live with it/starve them out over 6 months if they ever found my tank.
 
The problem with the starving idea is it means I have to toss all my montis. I could move them to a second tank, but then the same problem exists there.

Really annoying.
 
richiev said:
The problem with the starving idea is it means I have to toss all my montis. I could move them to a second tank, but then the same problem exists there.

Really annoying.
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Dip and let a friend watch them for 6 months, or 2nd tank for 6 months.

If you have a second tank, you could likely get them with a few dips over a couple weeks.
 
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