Any ID on this Nudibract

Joe Batt · Jul 18, 2018

I was dipping a few new frags today in Bayer and a second dip in Coral RX.

I found this nudibract dead after the Bayer dip. Is there any way to ID the type?

For those that don't dip new corals, this just goes to show why you ALWAYS should. This is a restart on a crashed tank (possibly due to pests) and was some of the first corals that I had bought to go into it.

I saved myself some heartache today

Crabs McJones · Jul 18, 2018

@KJ may be of help here, he's amazing at ID'ing stuff like this. doesn't look like a berghia, but I couled be wrong

KJ · Jul 18, 2018

Aeolid sp. predatory on corals remove them.

EW_Fish · Jul 18, 2018

Looks like you caught him before entering the tank. What ever it came off of I would QT it just to be safe these things can hide well

JaimeAdams · Jul 18, 2018

Also usually when there is one there are usually more and dips won't kill the eggs,

Joe Batt · Jul 18, 2018

Fortunately, the frags are in quarantine. I double dipped with Bayer and Coral RX, but I realise that will not kill any hidden eggs. I brushed the bases of all the frags and inspected then but it is easy to miss such small eggs.

What is the life cycle of the nudi? How do I break it? How many days between dips to catch any hatchlings before they reach adulthood and could lay more eggs?

Rispa · Jul 18, 2018

Joe Batt said:
Fortunately, the frags are in quarantine. I double dipped with Bayer and Coral RX, but I realise that will not kill any hidden eggs. I brushed the bases of all the frags and inspected then but it is easy to miss such small eggs.

What is the life cycle of the nudi? How do I break it? How many days between dips to catch any hatchlings before they reach adulyhood and could lay more eggs?

Since they are so gentle and corals why not just dipped daily to be sure?

Joe Batt · Jul 18, 2018

From Mark Martin on Dealing with Nudibranchs on https://www.bluezooaquatics.com/resources.asp?show=15

Luckily, many individual aeolids are often ineffective at establishing breeding populations that can lead to infestation, so if you do observe a zoanthid-eating nudibranch on your zoanthid colony, simply removing it with a pair of tweezers can be effective. Unfortunately, many zoanthid-eating nudibranchs are quite small and can easily proliferate in the aquarium environment making eradication quite difficult.
An effective treatment can be to use a product such as Salifert Flatworm Exit. This product is quite safe to both fishes and invertebrates and can be used in a reef tank. To use Flatworm Exit, turn off your UV sterilizer and ozone, and remove activated carbon from the system (keep your protein skimmer turned on). Add one drop of Flatworm Exit for every gallon of system water it in a high flow area of the tank (a cap full is good for 90 gallons). Flatworm Exit will NOT kill zoanthid-eating nudibranch eggs, so you should repeat the treatment again in one week to kill all of the newly hatched adults

So in a week I will dose the frag tank with Flatworm EXIT. Any other ideas or solutions would be welcome

Joe Batt · Jul 18, 2018

With further research it looks possibly like the monti eating nudi. According to Coral RX I should dip every 4-8 days until no more nudi's are found. So I will do that, dip once a week and add Flatworm EXIT. Keep the corals in quarantine for the next few months.

O'l Salty · Jul 21, 2018

Montipora eating nudibranch. AKA The Devil. This picture is of one that's kinda curled up feasting on a coral. My other pictures look very similar to yours. They lay their eggs on the underside of the coral in bunches. An adult like you have has most certainly laid eggs. Fortunately I caught mine in QT as well and most of the monti's were infected so I was able to do some research on the buggers. I did some trials with potassium permanganate as it was the only thing that killed the monti and it's eggs. Unfortunately it's very hard on the corals and few survived. The eggs can persist in the aquarium for at least a year.

KJ · Jul 21, 2018

O'l Salty said:
Montipora eating nudibranch. AKA The Devil. This picture is of one that's kinda curled up feasting on a coral. My other pictures look very similar to yours. They lay their eggs on the underside of the coral in bunches. An adult like you have has most certainly laid eggs. Fortunately I caught mine in QT as well and most of the monti's were infected so I was able to do some research on the buggers. I did some trials with potassium permanganate as it was the only thing that killed the monti and it's eggs. Unfortunately it's very hard on the corals and few survived. The eggs can persist in the aquarium for at least a year.

So sorry to hear about your problem with the Nudibranch