Montipora Eating nudibranchs, how to treat it?

[ben19185074]

Hi there,

I believe i have Montipora Eating nudibranchs in my tank...suggestion on how to treat it?

I have been taking out all my monti and dipping it in double dose Seachem reef dip which seems to be useless...So i try to kill as much as i can with my hand and a touch every night...kind of driving me crazy...

Any suggestion please?

 

[sabodish]

order up some Coral Rx. it will kill the nudi's but will not kill the eggs. you will have to search and scrape those off manually. you will still have to remove the corals from your tank for the dip, as you cannot add Coral Rx to the tank directly. After 2 treatments or so, along with scraping off the eggs, you should them beaten.

of course, if you miss ONE egg, the cycle will be starting all over. i would check ALL the montis in your tank for nudis and eggs.

 

[jd474]

all dips and natural predation methods are essentially useless against their egg masses, which is the real problem with them. If you can set up a clean system, frag off your existing colonies, revive dip, inspect and remove the rest of the montipora from your tank for 6 - 9 months to starve them out. If you have a large tank, and a large collection, they are extremely difficult to eradicate. If you can't set up another tank, I'd just give clean frags to a friend, and go Monti-less for as long as you can. They are a nasty pest and can live a LONG time without a food source.

And I think someone just said 'quarantine.'

 

[mike_cmu04]

You have to take out the montis scrape off the eggs and pluck the montis off as you see them after awhile they will be gone.

 

[UgoneBannas]

What I did was take all monti out of the tank and left it there for 2 months until they were all gone. Good thing about these guys is that they only eat montis, so if there is no food source they will eventually die.

 

[theSickness]

Yep. They all pretty much summed it up. Dip Every other day for a week or two and keep an eye out. If you see some dip and scrub immediately after the first week or two. Their life cycle is about a week for egg to hatch then another week to adult hood. Gotta dip before adulthood and you can beat them. Trick is to dip when you don't see them. If you see them it is too late, they laid more eggs. Good luck. They suck.

 

[tmgrash]

Those sob's have left me monti-less for the last 6 months.

 

[d0ughb0y]

quesiton, so are those small white curved objects in the first picture the eggs?
do they appear on plating montis only or on any monti, like branching montis?

 

[ben19185074]

Thanks for your help guys~ i'll order some coral rx to try. By the way i try Secheam reef dip and large dose on Lugols...they seems pretty useless to this bugs....

 

[sanababit]

try a melanurus wrasse, man that fish is controlling mine, i havent seen one in a week, jajaj

sana

 

[willjay]

Hi Ben, I wish you luck. They are a pain.

I've just had a small infestation and luckily so far i haven't seen anymore since i took action.

It started on a purple plate monti.... just noticed a white 1mm patch on the corner.
I removed the two plating montis i have and syringed off the montis i could see. Loads of little ones! Then i did a series of dips and checked for eggs.
After two weeks of dips i re-stuck the corals in position.
In between dips i rinsed the corals and had to return them to the main tank,
I think this helped actually as any in the tank made a bee line for my montis so none were left in the actual reef in the end.

As i say so far both montis are doing great and no signs since so hope that continues and hope you can sort yours.
I used coral RX by the way.
I had dipped all coral before stocking so shows how eggs can get in!
A small coral QT is my next project!

Very best of luck

 

[jdhuyvetter]

4 line wrasse wiped them out in my 300. I dipped on several occasions but could not kill them all. 4 line did it for me (with the help of a flame angel, very surprised by that one)

 

[ben19185074]

...i already have a sixline wasses in the tank which seems to do nothing...(he is too much into fish food) and a pair of dragonet as well.

Due to my part of the world where the choice of live stock is very minimal, the only wrasse i can buy now is a Solorensis Fairywrasse Male Cirrhilabrus solorensis (m). Will those help as well?

 

[Wrench]

Yellow or melanarus wrasse. They'll eat the adults and the juvis before the mature enought to lay eggs.

 

[d0ughb0y]

from first pic, are those things pointed to by the red arrows the eggs? or are they something else? thanks

 

[XSiVE]

those don't look like eggs to me. IIRC the egg clusters looked more brown but I could be wrong.

Also, potassium permangenate kills the nudi's dead in their tracks and the monti's are very resilient to its effects.. I've used it in the past to treat for these.

 

[sabodish]

those look like small tube worms..the eggs are in fact brown jelly like masses.

 

[theSickness]

+1. Those are tube worms. It is very hard to see the eggs. I had a six line wrasse that kept my nudis under control but if you deal frags to anyone you are potential burning a bridge. Get rid of the pests IMO.

 

[jd474]

Natural predation is hit or (mostly) miss. They are small enough to stay in places your fish can't go, besides. And I would NOT recommend potassium permanganate. I have dipped over 200 corals, and if you're using dosages high enough to kill nudis and dissolve egg masses (as per Borneman), it's too harsh on the coral. Unless you want them to look like this

 

[XSiVE]

Natural predation is hit or (mostly) miss. They are small enough to stay in places your fish can't go, besides. And I would NOT recommend potassium permanganate. I have dipped over 200 corals, and if you're using dosages high enough to kill nudis and dissolve egg masses (as per Borneman), it's too harsh on the coral. Unless you want them to look like this

I did high dosages as recommended but my monti's didnt look like that afterward.. it is definitely harsh but it works.