Montipora Eating Nudibranch

[Cable]

Welp found these little dudes on my Monti cap this morning.

Have no idea how they survived QT, observation and multiple dips.

Only have a few montis so its not the end of the world... going to try treating them for a few weeks in a separate tank.

I have a few other videos directly from the Microscopes SD card which are better quality I will try to post if I can get them onto my PC.

 

[KrisReef]

That is so frustrating to have them slip by.

 

[Glenner’sreef]

Good luck!!!

 

[DanyL]

Sorry for your troubles.

I suggest putting focus on eliminating the eggs, the nudibranches themselves are quite easy to spot with regular visual daily observation - usually they hide underneath.

I also recommend shrinking any large or complex forms of growth - it’s much easier to handle a few flat frags, than dealing with a complex form of growthwhich provides plenty of hard-to-spot hiding places for them to lay eggs at.

There are also different kinds of dips people have used in the past, I haven’t dealt with them for probably a decade so I don’t know if there are any preferred treatments found since than, but I humbly remember the use of potassium from back than.

 

[Cable]

Sorry for your troubles.

I suggest putting focus on eliminating the eggs, the nudibranches themselves are quite easy to spot with regular visual daily observation - usually they hide underneath.

I also recommend shrinking any large or complex forms of growth - it’s much easier to handle a few flat frags, than dealing with a complex form of growthwhich provides plenty of hard-to-spot hiding places for them to lay eggs at.

There are also different kinds of dips people have used in the past, I haven’t dealt with them for probably a decade so I don’t know if there are any preferred treatments found since than, but I humbly remember the use of potassium from back than.

Thanks for the tips. Luckily none of the frags have encrusted onto the rocks as the tank is pretty new. There all relatively small and flat as well.

I’m going to try dipping coral Rx every 3 days with a brush to remove the eggs for a month or 2 along with manual removal early in the morning.

I was initially planning on putting them into the QT but honestly don’t know if I can bare maintaining parameters for 6 months with my qt equipment.

I went through a similar experience with my fish when I got into the hobby and quickly ran into velvet. While I would 100% do it again for my fish….. it was painful to say the least.

If I’m unsuccessful in eradicating them in my DT I will likely give up on montipora for a year and focus on other species.

 

[DanyL]

While I agree that running a QT can be painful - I highly suggest doing so, and it can be much less painful by employing a few simple techniques.

Most pests can roam and lay eggs not only on their food source, but also on other surfaces, and the a rockwork in your DT provides plenty of surface for them to do so.
By separating them from their food source for period that is slightly longer than their lifecycle you’re essentially eliminate this concern and limit the treatment solely to the corals themselves.

There are different approaches to running a QT, and you really don’t have to have all the bells and whistles, it can actually be done in a pretty low maintenance-low equipment kind of setting.

Take a 10-20 liter container (I use a cheap storage container, where I also store all the QT equipment when not in use), a small power head, a cheap/old lighting and a tiny amount of GAC.

For water parameters:
If you have a large tank maintained by weekly water changes - you can easily piggy bank on it and take 1-2 liter for a daily water change in the QT. It won’t make any drastic impact on your salinity on systems larger than 500L and will get fixed by the weekly water change.

For smaller tanks you can mix 7-14 liters ahead of time and run 1-2 liters of water through your DT, and use the old water for the QT.

The reason we use old water for the QT is to provide all the elements, including Alk, Ca, mag, traces and nutrients as well as bacteria and micro algae to maintain a running cycle without any additional media, testing or equipment required.

For topping off - depending on the evaporation rate you may need to do this once or twice a day, manually.

The last, and sometimes the most difficult to tackle - you need to also maintain temperature. It highly depends on where you live and you may get by with a tiny heater or a small fan.

This is a cheap, low maintenance and proved way to maintain a QT that can support pretty much any coral you keep in your DT, including acros and other harder to keep corals, and it takes around 5 minutes of your time to maintain.

You also don’t have to run the QT for that long, from what I remember the lifecycle of montipora eating Nudis was around 3 to 4 months - but I would verify this before starting.

Hope this helps, good luck!