Nudis and something else...

[fishnfst]

Hello all I just did the freshwater dip to all of the zoas in my tank... They had been thriving for a couple of months and then all of a sudden half of them were staying closed.. I thought it might be water conditions but parameters were all good and stable.. I researched here and foudn info on the Nudis.. I hadn't seen any over the last couple of days checking in the morning and at night when the lights were off.. I didn't see any either.. Today I go to check on the tank and there is a little brown nudis crawling across my glass.. It looked just like the pics i saw here but so small...

I dipped them accordign to mucho's directions..

My question is are there snails that eat zoas?? I found a couple of these snail looking animals.. Their shell is shaped more like an abalone than a snail.. It looks like an elongated concave oval.. Could these be eating my or harassing my zoas as well...

I found about 12-15 nudis at the bottom of my bucket after I finished the dip... I'm not sure what the eggs look like but I'll continue to monitor....

Any other suggestions....

 

[twon8]

the snail like things are stomatella's; they are beneficial and eat algae.

 

[fishnfst]

Dang they are back again.. I saw one eating one of my zoos that was all closed up... I tried to suck him up but missed him.. I'm going to dip again tonite....

 

[Avi]

Be vigilant and persistant in ridding the tank of the zoanthid eating nudibranchs. Use a turkey baster every day and when you see them, suck them in and discard them, but you also have to destroy the eggs that you'll also see that are usually on the glass or on the necks of the zoanthids.

 

[TWallace]

You may want to give Salifert's Flatworm eXit a shot, as well. It worked for me in combination with FW dips and a neon wrasse.

 

[fishnfst]

Do the eggs look like a little white line stuck to the neck of the zoas? If so there were like 3 strings on the zoas next to the one being eaten.. they were there for like a day and then disappeared.. Does this mean that they hatched?

 

[Avi]

the eggs look like a small white ribbon, sometimes in a little bit of a concentric letter "C" form. The ones you saw were most likely the eggs. When you see them again, just move them from where they are set with the end of the turkey baster and then suck them in and discard them. And, yes...they may have hatched...that's why it's important to keep checking all the time to see if there are still nudibranchs on the zoanthids, even for about 10 days after you're certain you've seen the last one. There may still be eggs somewhere in the tank waiting to hatch.

 

[bobafett]

As long as there are zoos in the tank any nudis that hatch will have something to eat. The eggs are small and look almost like clear fishing line. They are usually curled up into a spiral. The best thing I found was to start up a small quarantine tank.

 

[MrMexReefer]

does anybody have any pictures of these creatures? Im pretty new to the hobby, but my zoa's were reproducing like crazy, and now they are nearly all shrivelled up and dead!! All i can see crawling on them is some little whole pod things... but they appear to have legs. I dont know what nudi's look like that small.. but they are definately not brown. Also... any links to the "dip" procedure??? i need help! i dont want mine to die out

didnt mean to hijack the thread... just didnt wanna start a new one for something already in discussion. Thanks guys!

 

[Avi]

Here's one of the first ones that I found when I had a bout with those about a year ago. You can see that their form includes what very effectively mimics the "skirts" of the zoanthisds. So, you have to look closely and carefully:

And, there are posts here in RC that show that these nudibranchs can even turn the color of the skirts of the zoanthids that they are consuming.

 

[MrMexReefer]

thanks for the reply avi, hmmm I've ben staring long and hard at them, and what's attacking mine don't look like that. mine look more like little white or clear-ish bugs that at crawling all over them and the base. I could have sworn I saw them tearing little stips of flesh off. I will take some pics and post later tonight... I want my zoas to keep going!

 

[TWallace]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8217614#post8217614 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by MrMexReefer
does anybody have any pictures of these creatures?

This one is relatively large, they're not usually that easy to spot. I lost that bright orange zoanthid frag to them before I won the war.

 

[fishnfst]

Wow that one is huge.. I haven't seen any that large yet.. The link to the dip is in the zoanthid forum near the top and its stickied....

 

[MrMexReefer]

thanks for the image Twallace. However, that is no where near what is killing mine!! OKay.. i tried to take pics... but my tank photography skills suck. Here they are anyway:

<a href="http://photobucket.com/" target="_blank"><img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v249/eclipsedoctor/pests001.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting"></a>
here is an off focus shot of the Zoas themselves, looking bulbous around the skirt area. They used to be one uniform sized cylinder!

now, since i couldnt get a focused pic of the critters on the zoas, i took a pic of them on another frag... which is still kinda blurry... but you can see from the white spots on this rock what i mean...

<a href="http://photobucket.com/" target="_blank"><img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v249/eclipsedoctor/pests002.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting"></a>

i'll take some better pics when i have more time.. sorry.. i hope this helps.

 

[Avi]

It's really hard to tell what they are from the photos. It's also difficult to know what they are from your description because I know of no zoanthid predators that are small and clear/white and move around over them. We're all waiting for a good photo because our curiosity is aroused and we'd like to help if we could.

Right now all I can do is guess that they are pods that are just congregating at the zoanthids but they aren't doing the damage...somethingn else is troubling them.