Monti Eating Nudi's -- The War

[chris4693]

I posted awhile back about my problem with Monti Eating Nudi's asking for suggestions on how to rid my tank of this pest.

Main two options where:
1. Adding a Six Line Wrasse and/or a Yellow Corris Wrasse.
2. Removing the corals and using iodine to kill of the nudi's.

Here is a pic of the Nudi's, sorry for the blue color but you get the idea.

Note: This is a pic of the underside of this coral that has been siting on the bottom of the tank since it broke off the rock it was on.

The first thing I tried and what seemed to be the easiest was adding a Wrasse. I added both a Six Line and a Yellow Corris.
I have yet to see the six line since it was added to the tank. The yellow Corris wrasse took a beating for 5 days from my other fish. The good thing is all signs of Nudi's was gone, the bad was the eggs still exsisted and my much larger fish took care of my Wrasse investment, giving my lots of Nudi eggs and two dead wrasses.

So tonight I was at Walmart and saw some generic Iodine, since I have seen new damage to my Caps I figured it was time to go this route. Buying a new Wrasse every week would get expensive. Yes I could have ordered a lugol solution, but for a quarter of the cost I picked this up.

I also picked up a small container to do the treatments in, a new clean toothbrush. I filled the container about half full to fully submerge my test coral. Since I have two peices of this same coral I figured this would be a good test if I kill the first one. I used about a half gallon of RO/DI water and about 5 drops of the Iodine. I then submerged the infected Monti Cap and wated about 30 seconds, and swished the coral about for a second one nudi came off. After waiting a total of One Minute I swished the coral again and all Nudi's feel off dead. Before returning the Coral to my tank I used the toothbrush to clean off any eggs, this did not matter if I damaged more tissue the idea was to completely remove the eggs.

This is what was left in the water.

My next step is to wait one to two days to see how the dip and scrub effects my coral before attempting to clean the rest of them. I will continue to post my results as time goes on.

 

[lawboy888]

sorry to hear...i went through the same thing and Hai also...i put a bunch of yellow coris and christmas..and prayers...

i lost several good monti cap colonies....make a good argument to quarantine...they can be devasting....if you have some colonies that is too far gone..throw it out...

 

[JR719]

Keep us informed about the health of the coral. That would be a heck of a lot cheaper than ordering the expensive stuff.

 

[chris4693]

All of the Monti's had been in the system for 6 months or longer, I got them from one of two things. Adding a Christmas Wrasse or when I added a couple of Zoo Frags. Other then that all Monti's Cap or Digi had looked great for 6 Months or longer, some of them over a Year.

So Yes it does make a good argument for Quarantine, unfortunatly I lost alot of space when my daughter moved back home, took down the extra tanks to make space for her. I should be regaining some space in the next 6 months and will be setting up a new Quarantine / Frag tank.

 

[mskohl]

Great pictures. Keep us posted.

 

[captbunzo]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8487391#post8487391 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by chris4693
All of the Monti's had been in the system for 6 months or longer, I got them from one of two things. Adding a Christmas Wrasse or when I added a couple of Zoo Frags. Other then that all Monti's Cap or Digi had looked great for 6 Months or longer, some of them over a Year.

Are you sure the eggs can't sit on rocks for months or years before hatching? I would guess that is likely as so many of these predators have such resilient lifecycles. You may have had the eggs in there for a year and they finally just hatched.

And thanks for creating this thread - I think it will be very informative for others who may encounter this problem.

Also, you might consider using a razor blade to scrape off eggs, if you have any trouble getting them off with a toothbrush.

 

[chris4693]

As fast as these guys have multiplied I would doubt they have been in there a year. Also from everything I have read you would be nudi free in a matter of about 3 months if you didn't have any monti's for them to eat on. .

The test coral looked a little pale today, but I only had a couple of seconds to look at it, I will try to get an updated pic of the coral tomorrow.

 

[chris4693]

Sorry for the long response on my battle with Monti Nudi's, anyway, the test coral started looking great within a week. I dipped the rest of my Monti's, Caps and Digi's, and all is good. It has been about 3 weeks and no signs of Nudi's. I plan to continue to monitor my tank for about 3 more months before selling frags.

The one thing I hated doing what breaking up a dinner plate size Monti Cap, I now have a couple of large peices and will place it back on a rock once I am sure I am Nudi free.

The final result, I was able to buy a much cheaper form of Iodine at Walmart and treat my Monti Corals. The one caution I would make is to be careful of how much Iodine you use. I fear that using to much Iodine in a dip would be harmful to your Corals.