Please help - need to get rid of monti eating nudibranch!

socalmiket

socalmiket

New member
I noticed a few weeks ago that one of my 7 different caps had a white spot in the middle, figuring it was caused by some salt creep falling on it I ignored it, but then I noticed it growing bigger. Then yesterday I noticed a purple cap with the same white spots.

Then this morning before the lights went on I saw a bunch of mop looking animals on the glass and around the purple plate.

I have these exactly... I can see a dozen or so adults so there has to be hundreds I can't see.

http://www.qualitymarine.com/News/Feature-Articles/The-Montipora-Eating-Nudibranch-(09/11/06)

The tank is very established so dipping is out of the question. I hear a wrasse with take care of them... does anyone have any experience with using a wrasse to take care of them?

Please help, my montipora caps are the bulk of my reef.

FTS_01_12_10.JPG


- MikeT

- MikeT
 
Weird thing is that I must have had them for 4 months, I haven't added any caps since December.

I noticed the coral being eaten about the same time my emerald crab died, Could the emerald crab be eating them?

All the reading I have been doing about these guys is depressing me... seems like I may loose some colonies completely.

- MikeT
 
casualreefer said:
U have any wrasse in the tank?
Click to expand...

I just got a yellow coris wrasse from a fellow reefkeeper. I put him in tonight, we will see what happens I guess.

I manually removed about 100 or so from the green cap that was most noticeably eaten. It seems weird that the cap next to it (actually growing through it) didn't seem to have a single nudi living on it.

I'll look again later about an hour after lights out to see if I can tweeze a few more off the corals.

I bought two more emerald crabs as the ones I had disappeared around the time I started seeing the eaten bits on my green cap.

- MikeT
 
All wrasses eat inverts and nudis.
( Inverts I mean, the ones that fit in their mouth ) My harem of flames always go after my acro crabs when they jump from coral to coral.

Some live, some don't. They try to eat the hermits and snails, but the barrier between them and the hard shell is what makes them weary.

Never had one that didn't.
 
The Coris wrasse started to eat them once it emerged from the sand (it dove in and hid the first day).

Since manuall removal and adding the wrasse I don't see any new damage, but I still see the nudibranchs in some crevices in the reef.

Anyone else had to deal with these pests in a display tank? Will I ever get rid of them completely?

- MikeT
 
I had them and lots quite a few Monties. Lost most of the large ones. I had saved a few frags and put them on a rack where it was easy to clean and check them. Those are mostly the ones i saved from those pests. I checked every evening after lights out and used a toothbrush to kill the little buggers. I haven't seen a nudie for almost a year now and my monti cap frags are now very large and healthy. So there's hope but they are not easy to get rid off.
 
Chipie said:
I had them and lots quite a few Monties. Lost most of the large ones. I had saved a few frags and put them on a rack where it was easy to clean and check them. Those are mostly the ones i saved from those pests. I checked every evening after lights out and used a toothbrush to kill the little buggers. I haven't seen a nudie for almost a year now and my monti cap frags are now very large and healthy. So there's hope but they are not easy to get rid off.
Click to expand...

Thanks, I am surprised at how long it was before I saw any damage, I only saw the damage a week ago, but last time I added any corals that could have these on it was in December 09. I got two types of monti, from an established local reefer and they had no visible damage.

I wonder if they have been eating the undersides of the coral for a while now, and only now are so populous that they attack the top?

Oddly it was a green cap I have had for 2.5 years that first showed the damage.

The Corus Wrasse ate at least one more, but at this rate I am going to loose most of my encrusted plates. Maybe when it gets more confident, it keeps hiding in the sand for hours at a time.

Thanks for everyone's input. I would like to hear more stories about people's experience with this particularly nasty pest (I had heard of red-bugs, but never knew about this one).

- MikeT
 
These are by far the worst coral predator. It's not the poplar choice, but Revive dip, and save frags in another (nudi-free) system, and throw the rest away. Wait 6-9 months, then re-introduce them back into your tank. Aeolids can live for a LONG time without any food, and they can stay in places where your fish can't eat them (it's not going to eat the egg masses, besides). I've tried natural predation, and dips of every kind, and none were 100% effective (at least not with a large number of colonies). Luckily, most montipora grow like weeds, anyway. This is the "quarantine all corals from here on out" lesson.
 
I used potassium permanganate with sucess. There is an article, I think by Borneman, that details experiments with it on this nudi. My Montis never had any apperent negative reaction to it. I dosed at the higher end of the recomendations. You will need to treat a few times to make sure you get any that hatched. I dont know how effective it is on eggs. The adults just fall free in the solution. I also made a new batch for each coral. The stuff oxidizes very quickly with organic compounds. My long term sucess can not be measured because I lost all my corals in a 2009 ice storm.
 
My suggestion would be to get KMnO and use it on any remaining tissue that appears uneaten. Make frags, leaving plenty of buffer space between the eaten parts and your frag edges. Dont put any dead skeletons back in your tank. After treating the frags, put them into another tank designated for the montis. Obviously you wont want to plumb it to your infected system. The larvae of this predator may be able to pass throughout your system. Whatever you do, act fast.
 
Phyto said:
My suggestion would be to get KMnO and use it on any remaining tissue that appears uneaten. Make frags, leaving plenty of buffer space between the eaten parts and your frag edges. Dont put any dead skeletons back in your tank. After treating the frags, put them into another tank designated for the montis. Obviously you wont want to plumb it to your infected system. The larvae of this predator may be able to pass throughout your system. Whatever you do, act fast.
Click to expand...

Thanks... totally sucks, but I guess it is what I have to do...

- MikeT
 
I have had the same problem.
We noticed that a monti was starting to go white, it began with a little spot and then spreaded to the entire coral.
Since this happened right after a water change with new salt, we assumed that it died because of the salt...
In the days after that, more montis were showing white spots, and it kept getting worse.
We didnt see any aldult nudi, but we did see eggs, wich at that time we didnt know they were nudi eggs.
Someone mentioned the posibillity of monti-eating nudi's, and we found adults that day.
We dipped the remaining monti's in a medicine the lfs gave us,
it didnt work, they fell off but didnt die at all...
Then we treated the entire tank, didn't work.
There was a green coris in there, didnt eat one nudi.
We added 2 yellow coris and it also didn't work.
As to say, we lost every single monti except one red frag in about 2 weeks, the first week we didnt know what was happening, thinking it was a bad water change. We lost really big colonies, and didn't had a quarantaine tank. We coudnt give frags away for anybody to hold on too because this would have spread the problem.
Now, after 8 months or so, we have added some new frags, and they are doing fine. I sure hope I never see any of them nudi's again, and we will be getting a quarantaine tank when we move into our new house.
I don't want to discourage you, but unless you have a seperate tank to put your monti's in, they are pretty much doomed...
 
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