Life cycle of the montipora eating nudi

BlueCorn

BlueCorn

Retired
Premium Member
In my 60 gallon, shortly before taking it down, I had a battle with some montipora eating nudibranchs. By the time that I figured out what was going on I'd already lost my m. cap. I'm using some of the rock from that tank in my 180 now. Recently I added a couple of monti frags from another reefer and am, once again, loosing them to nudis.

I was under the, apparently false, impression that like berghia these guys would die out without food. Does anyone know how long that they can survive without montipora in the tank and failing that how I can have long term success in their removal?

Cheers
 
I just removed all my monti's last week. I figure I'm going to go a good 6-8 months with out montis. From then on i'm going to strictly QT all montis i get. No idea on the life cycle though.
 
That's the basis of my question. Basically I was 4 months "monti-free" and I still have them.
 
Doug, Sorry to hear about this. I have never had those nudis, so I really can't advise what to do about them. However, once you are Nudi free, let me know and I will send you a couple Monti frags;)
 
Hey Doug, I'm thinking the nudis were on the new monti frags. I had them two years ago and only was able to get rid of them by chucking 90% of the colony, and checking and brushing off any on the frags. But after that, I've never had them again.
 
What people dont realize is that even when you remove the nudi (that you can see), you are not ridding yourself of the larval nudi's because nobody told you what to look for.

If you pick up your monti and see little squirmy things on it that look like baby shrimp and only kill the white/tan nudi you are leaving behind the babies. You have to take the whole colony out of the tank and rinse it off into another bowl and make sure you get into the nooks and crannies of it.

You must also get rid of the eggs that can be anywhere around a Monti cap or digi even on the rock. I also found that the larva can be free floating and in the sandbed. I checked this out myself.

So thay are hard to get rid of but get spread because people are giving away frags with the larva on them (innocently) because they dont see the actual nudi.

HTH
 
I have also come to notice that the patterns of the Nudi are as such :

1. If you see one or more large (.3-.5 cm) nudi under the cap or on a digi, it is laying eggs. You will not notice the eating pattern of the nudi because they are laying eggs and the larval nudi's eat away at the underside skin. The adults stop eating and moving until they finish laying eggs and then they move on. If you are having good growth you might not notice the underside damage until it stresses the coral and shows through as white spots.

2. As the larva grow they spread out around the surrounding areas of the rock and look for other montipora (to settle and feed and grow) in order to start the cycle again. As they get bigger and take on the familiar shape and color of the adult nudi they become free floating and rest on anything they can until they find your other prized montipora corals.

3. And to my surprize, I have found larva on my acro colonies. They are not eating them but I suspect that is also how so many of us are getting them into our tanks. Because I did not have any in my tank until I started trading "acro frags" and buying wild colonies. I had not purchased a monti cap or digi for over a year.

I have rinsed my corals off with tank water and collected samples of 2 stages (larval and adult) of nudi and put them in a tank for observation with a sacrificial frag. I am trying to see how long they can last after hatching and eating all of the coral.

Can someone please also tell me what else they have observed with this pest. I may be missing somethings.

PS can someone also help me find a way to kill these bastards before I freak out. I am running out of Beer.
 
I know that I have no concrete proof, but as soon as I added a 2 inch banana wrasse all of my monti eating nudis disappeared within 1 month and I battled them for over a year. I tried and tried to get rid of them before that (checking at night, breaking up the large caps) and nothing worked. I still had some smaller frags of monti left (and scraps on the rock) when suddenly they were all gone. My montis are now slowly growing back again and I have been in the clear for over 7 months now.
 
lt said:
I know that I have no concrete proof, but as soon as I added a 2 inch banana wrasse all of my monti eating nudis disappeared within 1 month and I battled them for over a year. I tried and tried to get rid of them before that (checking at night, breaking up the large caps) and nothing worked. I still had some smaller frags of monti left (and scraps on the rock) when suddenly they were all gone. My montis are now slowly growing back again and I have been in the clear for over 7 months now.
Click to expand...

i have 2 yellow coris wrasses and no luck eating the sucker yet!
 
I had the Corris wrasse and it did pick at my corals. While I dont discount it yet , I do think that they 'might" pick at the larval stage of the nudi's as they look very similar to pods and yound shrimp which is a staple diet. But I never did see it eat a full grown nudi.

But the coris is still a nice addition until it gets eaten by a green brittle starfish after it goes to sleep in the sandbed.... My bad :-(
 
Here's a few things I've learned:

The eggs hatch out in 4-5 days. There is no larval stage, they have direct devolpment. They hatch out at a relatively large size (1-2mm). It takes 3 weeks for them to be large enough to reproduce.

There are wrasses and such that will eat them, but if you have Monitporas w/ whorls, nooks and such, they will never eliminate them (though they might keep them in check).

They will eat any species of Montipora, but prefer caps and will eat them the fastest. I have also just found them eating and doing damage to Anacropora.

As far as getting rid of them, if you only have a few colonies, diligent manual removal can work. If your working w/ alot of colonies, chemical baths might be your best bet. Lugol's iodine at 5ml/L for a 3 minute dip will kill them and will effect hatch rate of eggs. Another promising drug is Levamisole. Levamisole at 20ppm for a 24 hour bath will kill them and reduce the hatch rate of eggs.

I'm right in the middle of a study on these guys and will hopefully be able to answer how long they can live w/out a host and other questions soon.

Mitch
Omaha Zoo
 
It took me months and months to rid my tank of these buggers. I went on nightly "flashlight patrol" to get rid of them. I used a toothpick to kill them and haven't seen any for 1.5 to 2 months. I had to make all of my montiporas available to be removed from the tank. This way I was able to look on all sides of the monti. I lost several pieces that I will not be able to replace - pink monti, blue denea with red polyps and lavender monti with dark purple polyps. I feel that I have been very lucky getting rid of these and all of my pieces are still able to be removed from the tank. Good luck getting rid of them and you can do it. Here is a picture of mine:

nudi1.jpg
 
mjcarl said:
There are wrasses and such that will eat them, but if you have Monitporas w/ whorls, nooks and such, they will never eliminate them (though they might keep them in check).
Click to expand...

Hi Mitch!

What species of wrasses have you found to eat the nudis?
 
<What species of wrasses have you found to eat the nudis?

There are a few species which I believe eat them, and a few species I know eat them. Pseudocheilinus sp. and Coris sp. wrasses are ones that I'm pretty sure eat them. In a few tanks w/ these wrasses the nudibranchs numbers are always very low. The Thalassoma sp. I know eat them from a study done by a student out in Hawaii. He found the Saddleback wrasse and Chaetodon auriga would readily eat the nudi that preys on Porites. He also found a variety of inverts (crabs and such) would also eat them. I have the paper if your interested in viewing it.

Mitch
 
i am fairly certain I got the monti nudi's from an acro frag! I had not added a monti to my tank in 1.5 years and all of a sudden I got them. The only things added were a FEW acro frags!

My huge monti caps are now a memory
 
mjcarl said:
<What species of wrasses have you found to eat the nudis?

There are a few species which I believe eat them, and a few species I know eat them. Pseudocheilinus sp. and Coris sp. wrasses are ones that I'm pretty sure eat them. In a few tanks w/ these wrasses the nudibranchs numbers are always very low. The Thalassoma sp. I know eat them from a study done by a student out in Hawaii. He found the Saddleback wrasse and Chaetodon auriga would readily eat the nudi that preys on Porites. He also found a variety of inverts (crabs and such) would also eat them. I have the paper if your interested in viewing it.

Mitch
Click to expand...

Thanks Mitch! I would be very interested in reading the paper.

RR
 
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