I received some polyps this week from a vendor, not a sponsor on Reef Central and not the infamous "Aquacon" (name says it all). Anyway, the purple hearted zoas had what I would say are clearly nudibranch eggs. I thought I would frag off this area as well as only get polyps, none of the underlying rock or substrate and make a new frag to dip etc. Did all of this and inspected the new frag after a dip in heavily dosed flat worm exit and wouldn't you know it there are more some more eggs on one of the polyps that I did not notice, not the 1st set of eggs that I noticed. Now at this point, I am not going to keep the polyps. They are history, 1) they have the nudi eggs, which I kept finding after fragging the frag and, 2) There are probably more I am just not seeing them and 3) there must be some nudibranches in the frag somewhere and I don't want to chance introducing them into my tank for the sake of saving one frag, but infesting my 90+ other zoanthids.
I do not have a quarantine tank and don't have any room or a wife that would agree to another tank of any size in the house. That being said let me share the advice that I got for the person/vendor that sold me the infected zoas in the first place.
"I would never kill a colony of zoas because of 1 zoa thats infested with eggs- you can pick them off with a tweezer
-or at worst slice the one with the eggs off with a new razor blade. 2 fishes has a dip that contains citrus that kills the eggs without harm too." Hmm... I guess he thinks I have the time to cut off a polyp, inspect and take a picture, cut a polyp inspect take a picture. I suppose that I could believe that nudis lay only one egg sac and until that one hatches there aren't any others.
I am posting this as there are many posts about being responsible about what goes in your tank and dipping and looking at the zoas or other corals you buy, but let me say if I listen to the advice I got from the vendor as to how to care for something that he sent me infested with nudi eggs, I would be jepordizing all the zoas that I have been collecting at the worst senario or ending up with alot of dipping and checking and hoping that nothing has gotten off the frag on to something. Interesting senarios when I am the one that paid out the money.
2 Questions
1) Would you be worried about putting something like this into your uninfected healthy system (ie no quarantine tank, 200# of live rock, 90+ zoas) after dipping, finding another group of eggs that you hadn't initially noticed?
2) Do you believe there is a dip that kills nudibranch eggs? ie ReVive, is what the vendor is talking about, certainly not a claim that 2 fishes makes about the dip.
I am not asking would you do everything to save the system and polyps that you have if you got an infection/infestation, I am talking about putting "bad" into Eden.
I do not have a quarantine tank and don't have any room or a wife that would agree to another tank of any size in the house. That being said let me share the advice that I got for the person/vendor that sold me the infected zoas in the first place.
"I would never kill a colony of zoas because of 1 zoa thats infested with eggs- you can pick them off with a tweezer
-or at worst slice the one with the eggs off with a new razor blade. 2 fishes has a dip that contains citrus that kills the eggs without harm too." Hmm... I guess he thinks I have the time to cut off a polyp, inspect and take a picture, cut a polyp inspect take a picture. I suppose that I could believe that nudis lay only one egg sac and until that one hatches there aren't any others.
I am posting this as there are many posts about being responsible about what goes in your tank and dipping and looking at the zoas or other corals you buy, but let me say if I listen to the advice I got from the vendor as to how to care for something that he sent me infested with nudi eggs, I would be jepordizing all the zoas that I have been collecting at the worst senario or ending up with alot of dipping and checking and hoping that nothing has gotten off the frag on to something. Interesting senarios when I am the one that paid out the money.
2 Questions
1) Would you be worried about putting something like this into your uninfected healthy system (ie no quarantine tank, 200# of live rock, 90+ zoas) after dipping, finding another group of eggs that you hadn't initially noticed?
2) Do you believe there is a dip that kills nudibranch eggs? ie ReVive, is what the vendor is talking about, certainly not a claim that 2 fishes makes about the dip.
I am not asking would you do everything to save the system and polyps that you have if you got an infection/infestation, I am talking about putting "bad" into Eden.
i would be sceptical of the advice from the vendor.