Oh no! Zoanthid Spiders???

[MechEng99]

I've had a colony of some really ugly zoanthids (brownish green with dull orange centers...blah) for about two months now, and noticed last night that a polyp in the center had a couple of white dots on it. It didn't look irritated or anything, so I just figured some sand had settled on it.

This morning, the polyp would open and close, open and close, still with the white dots on it.

I was doing maintenance on the tank, so I plucked out the one lone polyp just to be on the safe side.

Tonight I did my usual flashlight on the tank...and saw little white specks crawling allllllllll over the colony.

I'm guessing these are the zoanthid spiders I've heard about since they don't resemble anything else I've ever seen.

What now?

 

[bluenassarius]

nudis? spiders usually latch on to the polyp and suck away like a leech

 

[MechEng99]

Really? Hm. Well, whatever these things are, they're smaller than anything I can see. They're about the size of the period at the end of this sentence, but whitish gray. They run around pretty fast, & I can definitely see legs.

Should I dip these? If so, how?

 

[650-IS350]

your probly talking about copepods or ampipods

 

[Lishoop6]

what ever it is it probably wouldn't hurt to give it a fresh water dip

 

[Jimbo327]

copepods are beneficial in your tank. I wouldn't dip unless I know it is some kind of predator.

 

[MechEng99]

Well, they're not copepods...and they were royally making one polyp mad while on the top of it (whether they were eating it or not, I don't know.) They were on top of that one for two days straight before I took that polyp off the colony.

I don't know what they are, but it's a small colony...and I have 3 colonies of fire & ice that I DON'T want to lose.

For a freshwater dip, what should I do? I assume same water temp, RO/DI water, what else and how long?

 

[MTB]

Same water temp and ph. RO/DI water and add lugols iodine as instructed on the bottle. Leave for 15 min, swish in the bucket and replace to tank.

 

[lfduty]

I have a zoa nudi in a 2gtank i will get a pic for you so you can see it.