Monti & Acro eating Nudi Starvation Length

[CMatlosz]

Hey everyone, first post, hoping some other poor soul had dealt with the same issues and lived to tell the tale.

I'm currently dealing with pest nudibranchs in my DT. All of my frags were bayer/RX dipped prior to entering the display but I'm guessing I missed some eggs at one point. As of last night, everything has been cut above the affected areas, remounted and placed into a frag system where they can be inspected much easier and dipped every few days.

My question is does anyone have experience with how long the fallow period of Monti and Acro needs to be before they can be safety reintroduced back into the tank? I've searched around quite a bit here and other forums but haven't had much luck finding a definitive answer. There is more discussion available online regarding monti nudi's and I'm assuming the same would be true for acro nudi's. I've seen suggestions of 2-3 months and some as long as 6 months. Anyone have first hand experience on this? Six months seems like a really long time for these things to survive with no food source?

Thanks for any input you can provide.

 

[Paullawr]

Hey everyone, first post, hoping some other poor soul had dealt with the same issues and lived to tell the tale.

I'm currently dealing with pest nudibranchs in my DT. All of my frags were bayer/RX dipped prior to entering the display but I'm guessing I missed some eggs at one point. As of last night, everything has been cut above the affected areas, remounted and placed into a frag system where they can be inspected much easier and dipped every few days.

My question is does anyone have experience with how long the fallow period of Monti and Acro needs to be before they can be safety reintroduced back into the tank? I've searched around quite a bit here and other forums but haven't had much luck finding a definitive answer. There is more discussion available online regarding monti nudi's and I'm assuming the same would be true for acro nudi's. I've seen suggestions of 2-3 months and some as long as 6 months. Anyone have first hand experience on this? Six months seems like a really long time for these things to survive with no food source?

Thanks for any input you can provide.

Tough one.

6 months is the upper limit or so they say.

I waited just over 9.

Treatments such as Milbemycin or Levamisole is reported to be effective. I know the former was used by a local coral farm here.

 

[CMatlosz]

Tough one.

6 months is the upper limit or so they say.

I waited just over 9.

Treatments such as Milbemycin or Levamisole is reported to be effective. I know the former was used by a local coral farm here.

Interesting, I have read of Levamisole as a treatment for AEFW, did not know it was also effective against nudi's. I will look into it more and see if I can find some, might be an easy option since I'm basically running an LPS tank atm.

9 Months you went...ouch, I was hoping people could share success with shorter time frames, not longer....

 

[Paullawr]

Interesting, I have read of Levamisole as a treatment for AEFW, did not know it was also effective against nudi's. I will look into it more and see if I can find some, might be an easy option since I'm basically running an LPS tank atm.

9 Months you went...ouch, I was hoping people could share success with shorter time frames, not longer....

I waited it out fully. Had tried once at around the 6 month mark but they weren't all dead.

 

[maroun.c]

did you guys make sure not to have any residual monti that was keeping those guys from starving? 6 months seems kinda excessive.

 

[Paullawr]

It's possible a piece was in the tank ie broken off.

All I know is when a new monti was introduced they appeared and made a beeline towards it.

So after that I waited a full 9 months. Been nudi free since.

 

[CMatlosz]

I pulled every piece of monti & acros out. There were some small encrusted scraps left behind but they were all consumed within a day or two.

 

[maroun.c]

would be interesting to keep some in a small empty tank and observe how fast they starve. from what I remmember the recommendations were for 2 months monti free.

 

[BoomCorals]

aefe starve in a week without an acro to eat. I don't know about nudis. But the eggs can last 4 weeks before hatching.

 

[CMatlosz]

So it's been about 3 and 1/2 months, just started moving SPS back into the display last night. Will wait a week or two and see what happens before moving more. I did have some issues with the acro nudis getting into the frag tank either through my initial transfers for from a few new pieces I bought. It was easier to constantly dip and clean everything there. I haven't see any signs of them for about a month, but I'm not taking any chances and everything that's going back in the display is getting re-cut to only live tissue and will have to encrust again in the display, just not worth it.

Hopefully my yellow coris, leopard and melanurus wrasse took care of anything that was wandering around the last couple months. I'll update if anything pops up, might help someone in the future.

 

[Highgrade]

It was about 6+ months for me. All Monti's had been removed and placed in QT ( dipped/scrubbed every 3-5 days). I checked over the DT tank after lights out for many nights over the 6 month period. I would still find them roaming. Several wrasses in the tank. I would catch my 6 line eating them occasionally. From my understanding the Monti's are their primary food source and place to lay eggs. I often wondered if they still eat other things like algae, detritus, etc.... which could help them thrive longer in the aquarium. Also I used Flatworm stop to help combat them based on others experience using Flatworm stop. Figured it couldn't hurt.

 

[CMatlosz]

Sad to report that within a couple weeks of adding everything back to the display I found nudis on two different acro pieces this morning. Apparently 3 months is not long enough. I had 3 active wrasses during the fallow period, a yellow coris, melanurus and leopard. I've read many times that people find them effective, but in my experience these nudis are only active and out during the night when the wrasses are sleeping. I've also used KZ flatworm stop and coral booster throughout and would not describe it as being effective deterrent.

I'm very disappointed and unfortunately at this point the tank is what it is. It was difficult to keep the parameters correct in a small frag tank for 3 months to keep acro's healthy and I simply don't have the free time or the will to do it all over again, for even longer.

If anyone have any crazy ideas for in tank treatments I'll try almost anything at this point.

 

[chipmunkofdoom2]

I'm very disappointed and unfortunately at this point the tank is what it is. It was difficult to keep the parameters correct in a small frag tank for 3 months to keep acro's healthy and I simply don't have the free time or the will to do it all over again, for even longer.

How large is your QT? Depending on the size, I wouldn't call it difficult to maintain adequate stability. I wouldn't go as far as to call it easy either, but difficult? Not in my experience. My QT is 20g with about 18 total gallons of water volume. With weekly testing and a 5g water change once or twice a month, I'm able to keep acros and montis happy. The acros are even encrusting the plugs and growing new corallites. I test Ca/Mg/Alk every week. If the Ca/Mg were only about 25ppm off, I'd correct it that day. Otherwise I'd spread the dose out over the next few days. Alkalinity I would adjust over the next few days, only increasing by about 0.1 dKh per day, to minimize any chance of annoying the acros. Other than that, I don't need to do anything else to maintain my QT. And that's with a 6 line wrasse dirtying up the water. If your QT is fishless, you may be able to get away with far fewer water changes.

It's an unfortunate part of the hobby. Once these pests get into a tank, there's no way to get rid of them except to starve them out, or break down the system and start over.

 

[3mm3]

Sad to report that within a couple weeks of adding everything back to the display I found nudis on two different acro pieces this morning. Apparently 3 months is not long enough. I had 3 active wrasses during the fallow period, a yellow coris, melanurus and leopard. I've read many times that people find them effective, but in my experience these nudis are only active and out during the night when the wrasses are sleeping. I've also used KZ flatworm stop and coral booster throughout and would not describe it as being effective deterrent.

I'm very disappointed and unfortunately at this point the tank is what it is. It was difficult to keep the parameters correct in a small frag tank for 3 months to keep acro's healthy and I simply don't have the free time or the will to do it all over again, for even longer.

If anyone have any crazy ideas for in tank treatments I'll try almost anything at this point.

Any update?

 

[CMatlosz]

Any update?

I would describe my 3 wrasses as lazy, though to be fair, these things are literally never active during the day. Pull out a good flashlight after lights out and they're pretty obvious working around the base of SPS. As I said earlier, its very disheartening - my current tank has been set up for about a year, just moved over to AF comp 1/2/3 and everything is finally starting to take off with the exception of the 4 or 5 frags that these guys have made their way back too. I pull them off as I can, but honestly it's a losing battle and I've resigned to just dealing with it the best I can until we move again in another year or two and I can start over.

 

[Dennis Cartier]

I have also recently discovered a nudi infestation in my frag tank. As others have posted, I have added Flat Worm Stop and Coral Booster along with some wrasses. Too early to tell if the wrasses are helping. I did notice that one of the monti's seem to stop having new damage after I started the FWS and CB, while others have on going active infestations. If that continues, then it may indicate that it helps some monti's but not all monti's. Time will tell.

Dennis

 

[3mm3]

I would describe my 3 wrasses as lazy, though to be fair, these things are literally never active during the day. Pull out a good flashlight after lights out and they're pretty obvious working around the base of SPS. As I said earlier, its very disheartening - my current tank has been set up for about a year, just moved over to AF comp 1/2/3 and everything is finally starting to take off with the exception of the 4 or 5 frags that these guys have made their way back too. I pull them off as I can, but honestly it's a losing battle and I've resigned to just dealing with it the best I can until we move again in another year or two and I can start over.

This will sound crazy but hear me out for a split second.
Have you thought about adding skunk cleaner shrimp to your setup? Just a thought but I do believe they may help destroy those problems attacking your sps..

 

[CMatlosz]

I have one skunk cleaner in the tank already, he was a fairly early addition, at least 6-8 months ago. I can't say with certainty if he is doing anything to control the nudi population but my gut says no.

These nudi's ignore all of my montipora, they prefer the good stuff