Monti Eating Nudibranch Question

[DDon]

One night while looking at my tank I found nudibranch munching on my forest fire monti digitata. This had been the last monti frag that I had added but had been dipped when added and had been in the tank for about 5 or 6 weeks so I was a little surprised to find them. I used a turkey baster and pulled 5 off, wanted a better look to make sure it was what I was thinking. Since it was just a frag, I went ahead and pulled from the tank and just chucked it. About a week later found more on my montipora spongodes that was located close by the digi that first had them. Again, since small I immediately removed and discarded. So at this point I pretty much resigned to the fact that all my montis would be attacked. Most are pretty difficult to remove so not much chance of pulling and treating.

So my questions:
How long does it typically take before you will see them and damage starts. I was pretty surprised it was 5-6 plus weeks. I assume the last frag had eggs but would have though they would have hatched and started on it well before this amount of time.
It has been about 6 weeks since I removed the second piece and though i was expecting the worst, I have yet to see any signs on any of my other pieces.
Is there any change I got lucky and got them all out with these 2 pieces? Or is it just a matter of time before they make their presence know again.

Thanks in advance
Dale

 

[brad65ford]

Had them in a previous system. Hate these guys, they are nasty and when you think they are gone they pop back up. Certain types of Wrasses will keep them at bay, but unfortunately they need to die from starvation for them to stop laying eggs. Did all types of dips and quantitative etc... its like they can hide out in the rock work and just waiting. I forget what I read about how old they have to be to lay eggs but its something like a week or two (don't quote me on that) I wish you lock since monti's are my favorite sps and destroyed my last collection.

 

[DDon]

Had them in a previous system. Hate these guys, they are nasty and when you think they are gone they pop back up. Certain types of Wrasses will keep them at bay, but unfortunately they need to die from starvation for them to stop laying eggs. Did all types of dips and quantitative etc... its like they can hide out in the rock work and just waiting. I forget what I read about how old they have to be to lay eggs but its something like a week or two (don't quote me on that) I wish you lock since monti's are my favorite sps and destroyed my last collection.

Thanks

 

[Reefvet]

If you can remove the frags, dip them and remove the culprits there's no reason to give up good corals. Do this every 4-5 days for a week or 2 and you'll see the end of them.

In the 20+ years I've been dealing with them it's just been a little annoying but certainly nothing worth tossing frags over.

 

[DDon]

If you can remove the frags, dip them and remove the culprits there's no reason to give up good corals. Do this every 4-5 days for a week or 2 and you'll see the end of them.

In the 20+ years I've been dealing with them it's just been a little annoying but certainly nothing worth tossing frags over.

Thanks for your response. The digi frag wasn't really worth saving, had been knocked into another coral a couple weeks before by tubo snail or? and had been on the losing end (yes it was glued down) and with the nudi munching on it there wasn't much to save. The spongodes I probably could have saved though.
Since you have experience with these, what dip have you been most successful with? I have read up on treatment quite a bit but didn't seem to find a clear cut solution. Only other frag I have to worry about and will definitely dip if they show up there is mystic sunset, after that it is colonies that aren't easily removed without tearing the rock work apart. Biggest concern and reason for getting rid of infected frags so quickly was to try to prevent the spread to these larger pieces.
Could you share any of your experience with how quickly they will spread and how long without seeing evidence of them before I can consider myself free of them?

 

[Reefvet]

I put frags in a small container with tank water and a cap full of Revive. That's many times the normal strength but I only leave the coral in it for 5 minutes. While it's in there I use a small syringe and force water anywhere they could be between the frag and whatever it's attached to.

I move the frags to another small container of tank water and then change that water a couple of times until I can no longer smell the Revive so that I don't introduce it back to the tank.

I've found that if I do that every 3-4 days for week or so it takes care of the problem. It all depends on how many eggs they've laid in the tank before you saw the adults. I look closely at my Monties all the time just to keep any eye out for them.

 

[DDon]

Thanks

 

[DDon]

Well unfortunately these little buggers have reared their ugly heads again. This time they are in a large purple rimmed green monti cap and sunset monti. Both coral are on the same large rock which I can remove to treat but will need to remove a couple other corals from. I am trying to formulate a plan to completely wipe these guys out if my display and could really use some help.
I assume I Will need to remove all monties from my system and starve them out. From those that have experience dealing with these guys are there any monties these guys leave alone?
Most in my system will be fairly easy to remove with the exception of a red encrusting monti that is on multiple rocks (don't really care about this piece as it is spreading too rapidly in places I don't want). To get this out though I will need to disassemble part if my rock structure and chisel/scrape off. There are acros on these rocks as well that will make it pretty difficult to remove. The other piece that I'm not sure I can remove is a setosa. I haven't seen any mention of the nudis feeding on montipora setosa, anyone have any experience with this?
As far as dips, most don't seem to have much effect on these guys and nothing kills the eggs except maybe potassium permanganate. Any thoughts or opinions?

I will be setting up a separate tank this weekend to house my monties while I treat and to let the display be monti free to starve these guys out. I see varying reports on length of time for this, if you have had success with this how long did it take?

I would really appreciate any experience or insight anyone could provide.

Reefvet, you had success with using Revive at high concentration on frags. Any experience with large pieces and could you provide more detail on concentration? I will need to use in the neighborhood of 10 gallons of water to be able to dip the infected pieces. Would I be better off fragging to ensure I get them all? Also any negative effects to the corals using high concentration?

 

[dartier]

Nock on wood, I "think" I have just beat these buggers. My main tank appears to be nudi free, the last ones were found and treated over 4 weeks ago. I still have 1 colony and 1 frag in a separate QT tank that is most likely infected and I am trying to decided if I should just cut me losses and toss those.

Unfortunately they do go for M. Setosa, as I had them on my favourite orange setosa. I used multiple Revive dips and covered the bare skeleton with crazy glue to deal with the setosa. Trimming the bare skeleton back also helps to limit the possibility of eggs being present.

I also tried the Potassium Permangante method. I was not able to find the right treatment amount/time to kill the eggs and not the coral. I found it to be very harsh on the corals, and still the nudis managed to survive.

I eventually won by being methodical, dipping frags even when they were no longer showing signs of nudis and disposing of heavily infected colonies and frags. I also pulled ALL the montis out to separate QT tank and only moved them back once I was fairly sure they were nudi free. There were a few setbacks though along the way.

A technique that I found helpful was to take a Dremel with a cut off wheel and trim my frags into squares of healthy tissue and discarding the margins of the frag (and the frag plug). I then took a tooth brush to the undersides of the square and thouroughly cleaned them. This worked pretty well and I would highly suggest it for encrusting or plating montis that have a flat growth pattern..

Unfortunately my largest coral colony was a green platting monti the size of my hand that had been growing well for the last year. I had to cut my losses and remove the whole colony as the layer upon layer of growth and nooks and cranies left too many places for nudis/eggs. I did however salvage 5 frags from it by trimming back to uninfected tissue and those are now well on their way to growing out.

Also I should mention, I treated with Revive or Revive/Detol mixture. The mixture was used for heavily infected pieces and the plain Revive for getting the stragglers that would appear later.

Dennis

 

[DDon]

Thank you vey much for your response.
I assumed the worst as far as M. Setosa but was holding out some hope. Thanks for confirmation that it is at risk as well. It is not showing symptoms now but in the effort to eradicate M.E. N. from display I will remove.

I pretty much resigned myself to the fact that I will need to frag my monti cap since there are so many nooks and crannies for nudis and eggs to hide. The sunset monti will most likely be a total loss but not having to deal with those large pieces will make treatment easier. (Trying to find a bright side)

I'm not familiar with Detol, can you provide more detail on that? Also what concentration of Revive did you use?

How long did you leave your display without montipora? I'm still unsure of how long they could survive in the system without a food source.

Thanks again

 

[dartier]

The M. Setosa was the easiest of my corals to get nudi free. You may want to treat it rather than remove it completely (unless you mean to separate QT tank). The nudis usually go for Digiata and Setosa after the monti caps.

Detol is an antiseptic that you can buy at the drugstore. It smells just like Revive. I view it as a very concentrated version of Revive. However unlike Revive it is oily and does not mix easily with water, so when I used it, I mixed 1 cap of Revive with 0.5ML Detol in 1 litre of water. Mix the Revive and Detol first before adding the water, otherwise the Detol beads and floats on the surface of the water. The normal recommendation of Detol (for dipping) is 0.3ML in 1 L, but as I was pulling out all the stops, I used 0.5ML.

For plain Revive, I mixed at 1 cap in 1 L of water.

I had the frags (and colonies) out of the DT tank for the better part of a month in a QT. During that time I dipped them and returned them to the QT tank about twice a week. I tossed most (all?) of my monti cap frags as the eggs were very difficult to deal with on those. I had not thought of the Dremel technique at that point. I probably could have saved a good portion using that method (remove from plug, trim to a square and clean underside extensively).

I kept a daily watch on the DT and dipped any frags that had been migrated back that had relapses. The pattern of damage from nudis lends itself well to spotting the white splotches around the margin of the coral. At that point they have already been present for awhile though and have been muching on the tissue on the underside of the margin. So be prepared to take action.

I also used a USB microscope to help spot the nudis and eggs. I would remove corals to a container at my computer and carefully inspect them to see if any nudis and/or eggs could be found.

I also added 4 more peppermint shrimp into the DT as they are known nudi predators, along with 20 small blue legged hermits. I am not sure if the hermits helped at all, but I wanted to attack them from all angles.

Trimming the frags/colonies back to healthy tissue and disposing of the bases and plugs worked the best for me and is the way I will try first if I ever have the misfortune of getting these again. Unfortunately I only started doing it at the end after I had already tossed a lot of frags.

Dennis

 

[DDon]

Thanks for all the info, very helpful.
When I said pull the M. Setosa, I meant pull from display and put in separate QT.

 

[markalot]

I fragged, dipped, scrubbed, and moved my prize montis to my nano tank. I'm keeping these nudis as pets in my main tank, waiting patiently for them to kill my caps so I can mount acros on them. It's interesting how slow these guys can be but they are increasing in numbers. It's taken over 2 months and my large spongodes is still not dead.

Based on this experience I would think that regular observation and scrubbing would keep them under control, and if done on a regular basis might even eliminate them after a couple of generations.

 

[Reefvet]

Based on this experience I would think that regular observation and scrubbing would keep them under control, and if done on a regular basis might even eliminate them after a couple of generations.

I would agree. Persistence is key. I check Monti's every week and if I find something on one in a tank I dip all the Monti's in that tank. I repeat for weeks even if I don't see anything.

I have a Setosa they've never touched while they were eating a Digitata just a few inches away. There was an identical Digitata on the other side of the tank in higher current and they never touched it either. Maybe I just kept them from the inevitable by dipping all the Montis.

I've never used anything stronger than revive and have never felt the need to.

 

[DDon]

Thank you Reefvet and markalot. I have read so many horror stories about these things in my research, I want to make sure to do the right thing. Have you both been able to eliminate them or do you live with them and manage the population through periodic dipping? Once pieces get large, seems like pulling to dip will get more difficult. I have a mix if newer frags and large colonies, frags will be easy but the colonies will be a real pain.

 

[markalot]

Thank you Reefvet and markalot. I have read so many horror stories about these things in my research, I want to make sure to do the right thing. Have you both been able to eliminate them or do you live with them and manage the population through periodic dipping? Once pieces get large, seems like pulling to dip will get more difficult. I have a mix if newer frags and large colonies, frags will be easy but the colonies will be a real pain.

I am not managing them but instead watching them kill what montis I have left that can't be removed. I may start to try to kill them after my caps are gone, since it seems like getting them on encrusting and digitatas will be fairly easy since there's no good places to hide. I've always had a love hate relationship with monti caps since they grow fast and shade things, but losing my big spongodes ... I just don't like to think about it. Spongodes seems to be a favorite of my crew. :angryfire:

I've got a large Setosa that has not been touched yet, and I was able to place a small frag in another tank, but I might go to war if/when they start picking on it.

Walgreens, dental tools and brushes, have been a big help. I won't be pulling anything out to dip.