Went to Salty.

DevilBoy

DevilBoy

New member
Yesterday i went to Salty and bought a couple of Zoa frags. As i was floating the bag in my sump. i looked at the frags carefully and noticed about 6 - 10 zoa eating spiders crawling on the closed up polyps. Does anyone have any experince with the zoa spiders?

How do i get rid of them?


This is not a knock at Dan and his business. I just want to know how i can get rid of the nasty pests.
 
i went to Reef Systems last weekend ,,Todd said you can fresh hot water rinse your zoa's ,, he said any outside zoa's frags or shipments he gets in ,, he always runs them under hot fresh water to kill anything on them , and he said they will be just fine in a day or so ??? call down there and ask him ,,hes real cool ,,,and knows his stuff too ,,,, im sure he will be glad to help you ,,,,

www.reefsystems.com

Murph
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11810756#post11810756 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by GSMguy
Wrasse of some kind?
Click to expand...


I dont think a wrasse would eat these. But i want to add my onyx clowns as my first fish.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11810754#post11810754 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by MurphSalty
i went to Reef Systems last weekend ,,Todd said you can fresh hot water rinse your zoa's ,, he said any outside zoa's frags or shipments he gets in ,, he always runs them under hot fresh water to kill anything on them , and he said they will be just fine in a day or so ??? call down there and ask him ,,hes real cool ,,,and knows his stuff too ,,,, im sure he will be glad to help you ,,,,

www.reefsystems.com

Murph
Click to expand...


Did he tell you how long to run them under the hot water? Will this kill any eggs they might have laid? So i am guessing that this will kill off any thing else that would be bad or good that are living on the zoa frags?
 
I feel your pain. I also had the same problem with a colony I bought there. It took quite awhile to get rid of them.

I used a piece of silicone airline and hard tubing to suck them off. I checked for them a few times a week over a course of about a month. Just when you think they are all gone, you'll find more. It's hard to get them all at first. Just be patient

The colony looks good now, but it's still in QT. It's been at least 2 months since I bought the colony.

Jason
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11812140#post11812140 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by TCKTME
I feel your pain. I also had the same problem with a colony I bought there. It took quite awhile to get rid of them.

I used a piece of silicone airline and hard tubing to suck them off. I checked for them a few times a week over a course of about a month. Just when you think they are all gone, you'll find more. It's hard to get them all at first. Just be patient

The colony looks good now, but it's still in QT. It's been at least 2 months since I bought the colony.

Jason
Click to expand...


Thanks for the pick me up.

I just dont know what to do with them. I still have them in the bag in my sump. I am afraid to take them out and infest my system since it is a brand new system. When i picked them out at Dan's they all were fully expanded and looked real nice. If these spiders are that bad wouldnt the zoas be closed. Last time i looked at the bag, the polyps were opened in the bag. I am just thinking about running the frags under warm water, checking them out real good, then doing a freshwater dip, then placing them in a 5g bucket of saltwater since i do not have QT .
 
Don't worry. All will be well. I have been down this path also. Here's my two and a half cents: a fresh water dip will be enough plus some attention with tweezers will be enough. Use RO water and try to get the pH and temp the same as your tank. Dip and swirl the zoa rock for as long as five to ten minutes. Zoas are very tolerant of this abuse. You might even find some nudi's die in the process. The spiders are just a tad trickier because they tend to cling to the polyp. However, they are more easily seen than nudis and are quite easy to pull off with tweezers.

I've had good success with this. And manual removal of the spiders is key. Also, more than one dip over the course of the first week is nice insurance. After you do this, just keep an eye on the colony. Pay close attention to any polyps that do not reopen or appear to irritated. It's a good way to find the pests.

Best of luck.
 
follow-up thought: if you don't have any zoanthid presently in your tank, it may be fine to add this rock with caution. It's not like the spiders are going to run off and eat your other corals. And if they leave, they will have to come back to this colony and will stay there. I don't think you're going to infest your tank.

If, on the other hand, you do have other zoanthid colonies, then do not add this rock to the tank until you have done at least one dip and pest removal procedure. I think you were worried because quarantine was not an option for you. At the very least do a fresh water dip and pick off as many spiders as you can before it goes in initially. Then keep a close eye on it. Chances are very good you'll have to do it two or three times.

Sorry for being redundant.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11813462#post11813462 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by fambrough
follow-up thought: if you don't have any zoanthid presently in your tank, it may be fine to add this rock with caution. It's not like the spiders are going to run off and eat your other corals. And if they leave, they will have to come back to this colony and will stay there. I don't think you're going to infest your tank.

If, on the other hand, you do have other zoanthid colonies, then do not add this rock to the tank until you have done at least one dip and pest removal procedure. I think you were worried because quarantine was not an option for you. At the very least do a fresh water dip and pick off as many spiders as you can before it goes in initially. Then keep a close eye on it. Chances are very good you'll have to do it two or three times.

Sorry for being redundant.
Click to expand...


That is a very good thought. Thats correct i have no other zoas or any other corals in the tank as of now. Yes i was worried since i do not have a QT as a option. Thanks for the great advice i will perform the first FW dip tonight, then i will proceed from there.
 
Fambrough, would Iodine dipping the zoos help any with the spiders? I've never dealt with them or know anyone who has. Just kind of a FYI for future use ya know?

I've gone through zoo eating nudis before and they are a paaaaaaain to get rid of. Didn't QT my stuff, nor did I dip them. Young and dumb, what can I say. That was a few years ago though.
 
you are to have to several freshwater dips over the corse of two weeks and use tweezers. When you dip them in freshwater don't be afraid to shake the frag to get these spiders off. Watch for them when your lights first turn, the spider will be on top of the polyps you can then grab them with tweezers, they move very slowly.
I had the same problem with zoo frags from salty, but I didn't know they were bad until they attacked my large colony of zoos. It took me 3 months to get rid of them.
Iodine dips do nothing to these spiders.
 
Update:


First FW dip has been done. I plucked off 3 spiders with tweezers, and there was about 6 or so that were in the shipping water in the bag. I will have to look at the frags after the lights go off too see if i see any more
 
I just seen some of these in my tank for the first time! Ive never had anything like this in any of my tanks before and I too got the zoo's from the Salty. If I dont get rid of them will they destroy my colonies or just irritate them at times.
 
You need to get them out. They eat zoanthids. I think they will diminish your colony over time. The zoanthid forum is a great place to do some research. Maybe someone else over there will have a better opinion. My zoa rock was from Salty too. I don't think this reflects on any husbandry problems. It is a very common problem associated with zoanthids, although nudi's seem to be generally more common. I think Dan's source may have particular issues with the zoanthid eating spiders. Dip and inspect all frags, from all sources, no matter how clean they seem. I learned the hard way, and not, BTW, from my beautiful zoanthid rock from Salty, which is quite healthy and now free of pests.
 
sea spiders

sea spiders

Fwiw there are many types of sea spiders. We had some once that ate aiptasia. They were very light colored.
If they are a crustacean dylox will kill them. Dylox is an organic insecticide that is used to kill flukes. I have no idea what it will do to corals. If I had to guess it would kill them but I havent tried it on them.
Here is a wild stab in the dark. Praziquantel will also kill flukes and is much less harmful to fish. It might kill them. If someone has an infected colony and wants to try the dylox (i.e. be a guinea pig) bring it in and we will treat it for free with the dylox. Understand the dylox might kill your coral. I have some prazi at home I use on my pond also buit I am not sure if that would kill the sea spiders.

We had a birth of thousands of parasitic isopods once and we tried freshwater dips with formaldehyde. Some of the bugars fell offf and swam around in the freshwater for over 4 hours untill we dumped them still alive down the drain. I recalled that dylox was death to crustaceans and put the infected fish in water with dylox. The creatures form hell all died.

Greg
Aquatic Technology
(440) 236 8330
 
Well here is a update.

So far so good, i can not find any spiders as of yet, but the lights have been on all day. The polyps seem alittle ticked off still some are starting to open and others are still closed.

I will continue the FW dips about once a week for a month and see how it turns out.
 
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