update : praziquantel vs. monti eating nudibranches

[latazyo]

as some of you may know I recently had a believed monti eating nudi situation

curt recommended I try a new method of fighting the beasts by hitting them with praziquantel (sold as PraziPro fish medication)

this medicine is used to fight flukes and other flatworms in fish

apparently Mitch Carl discovered its affectiveness and was working with borneman on determining dosage, etc

anyways, I did not have time to wait as this was killing my superman, so I decided to just chance it

in my experiment I filled an ice cream bucket about 1/3 full, so I figured I had 1/3gallon of water

the directions on the PraziPro gave dosage amounts for fish, so I used that to figure out what I would need for 1/3 gallon if I were using it for fish....then I TRIPLED that number

I put my frags in the water (fully submerged) for about 45 minutes (a long time, but I had other frags to glue, etc so they just hung out while I was doing that)

then I returned the frags to the tank

it has now been exactly 2 weeks since the treatment and I have to say it has had very positive results

the corals immediately (within days) regained color

on my superman, some color is returning to some parts that were "whited out"

the most important thing to note is that since the treatment no further damage has occurred to the corals

since I am only a hobbyist and not a scientist, my methods were far from scientific and I am not suggesting that people go out and do this to their corals, but simply passing something on that worked for me and saved my superman

 

[wentreefgirl]

Have you seen anymore new nudis. THis is cool news.

 

[latazyo]

negative

 

[Reeferhead]

Good deal! Did you ever see any nudis to begin with or just symptoms? How small are these buggers?

 

[latazyo]

just symptoms, but curt was pretty sure

they're tiny...they look like sand on your coral, apparently a magnifying glass is sufficient to see them...they mainly reside on the underside of them

since the treatment my corals suddenly regained color and the superman has already started to show visible growth, so Im 99% certain that I either 1) had nudis and this killed them or 2) had something else that this killed

 

[KenStanley]

Just a quick note. I've been helping a friend of mine with his monti eating nudi and acro eating flat worm problem. His nudis were not small at all and very very aggressive. In fact they were able to kill an entire colony the size of the palm of your hand in less than 1 week. His nudi's were very visible ranging in size from 1/8" to maybe 3/16" long.

We are still in the process of quarantine and I will give a very detailed report once we have completed the process. I will quickly say we elected to use a stronger concentration with a shorter dip time and it appears to have been very successful. We mixed 2 ml per liter of water for the Acro eating flat worms and dipped them for only 15 minutes. Basically the flat worms began to fall off and die with in 5 minutes or so and within the 15 minute dip time there was almost no movement of any of the flat worms in the dip bowl. (As a side note we found it very helpful to use a clear glass bowl so you could see what was going on much easier) The acros handled the dip very well with minimal discoloration (unlike the iodine solutions we tried). Almost all of the acros showed good polyp extension with in a day of the dip. One week after the dip we dipped again and we were astounded to again find hundreds of flat worms. We have now gone to a dipping the corals ever other day for the past week. Last night we did our 3rd dipping and we saw NO flat worms. ZERO. Although we do see some of the corals are beginning to show signs of stress. I’m not sure if it is due to the flat worms or the treatment, however most pieces are doing well with very good polyp extension.

The nudis appear to be a much tougher kill. For them we worked our way up to a concentration of 5ml per liter of water. Again the montis appear to handle the dip very well with little discoloration, at least initially. Our first attempt we used the same concentration and duration on the nudis as we did the flat worms which in hindsight was not a good move. One week after the intial treatment we still had nudis. Lots of nudis. We adopted the same procedure for the montis as we did the acros and last night on the 3rd dip of the week we saw NO nudis. We are going to dip every thing one more time this Saturday.

I’ll provide a more depth discussion once we are 100% certain we have eliminated all of the problems.

The most important thing I have learned in this entire process is............. DIP & Quarintine EVERYTHING. With way more than 100 acros and monti I never want to go through what he has gone through.

 

[frenchie]

our lfs starting to carry more cori wrasse since people around area been having pest issues. Have had flatworms before but i now have sixline wrasse in each tank and no more flatworms, bad thing is sixlines like those micro starfish and baby brittle starfish to.

 

[levon15]

You would figure Superman could take care of himself........




I feel stupider by making that comment.......



Back to work.

 

[latazyo]

my super still carries his battle scar, but is expanding at a ridiculous rate, so the treatment worked and all is well

 

[KenStanley]

I just found this if anyone wants to see a nudi, up close and personal. http://www.qualitymarineusa.com/article.asp?page=feature&id=FA22AE9A-A335-4F27-A5C5-0913F83DCB60

 

[jrbiala]

That picture is exactly what I saw on my monti. Small, but easy to see with the naked eye. I didn't know what they were until I sucked them up, put them in a container, and proceeded to watch them move. I siphoned up about 20-30 the first night, 2-5 the next day, and haven't seen any since (day 4). But I'll keep looking. KenStanley, let everyone know how the praziquentil works out.