Montipora Eating Nudibranches - A cautionary tale :(

[Willz]

Sorry to hear about that. I had once MENB, I had to remove all my montis to a QT with weekly dips of iodine based dip. I had no luck with that. I switched then to ReVive dip which worked great for me. I made 2 dips weekly with double the time and dose and scrubbed the back of the montis. 2 weeks later there no more NB.
I also added 2 yellow wrasses and a meleagris wrasse.

Thanks for the information! I just ordered some Revive online. I also will stop tonight to get some Bayer.

I have added a yellow wrasse and in my new tank it will be stocked with a good population of wrasses as well.

 

[Willz]

Ugg sorry about this but thanks for the warning for everyone else.

Thanks Rev! Hopefully someone can learn from my mistake

 

[Sabellafella]

Noo!!! Willz!!! Hope everything turns out ok, anyways man, youll be back on your feet soon. What ive done a long whilr back with an infestation of monti nudis, although they are the worst pest i encountered. I got rid of them with just a redsea test kit syringe, and some peroxide. I put all my montis in a pile for about 3 weeks, and monitored. Took them out and took the mag glass to them, spot checked with the syringe full of peroxide. And sucked them out. It took a while but i did it, anyways, again i hope everything turns out ok bud

 

[Willz]

Noo!!! Willz!!! Hope everything turns out ok, anyways man, youll be back on your feet soon. What ive done a long whilr back with an infestation of monti nudis, although they are the worst pest i encountered. I got rid of them with just a redsea test kit syringe, and some peroxide. I put all my montis in a pile for about 3 weeks, and monitored. Took them out and took the mag glass to them, spot checked with the syringe full of peroxide. And sucked them out. It took a while but i did it, anyways, again i hope everything turns out ok bud

Thanks buddy!!! So the peroxide kills them when you siphon them up, I like it. I can exact punishment on them myself instead of the faceless and somehow unsatisfying dipping. I'm heading down to the fish room now to see what I can find! I think it will do my soul good to off a few

 

[Sabellafella]

Thanks buddy!!! So the peroxide kills them when you siphon them up, I like it. I can exact punishment on them myself instead of the faceless and somehow unsatisfying dipping. I'm heading down to the fish room now to see what I can find! I think it will do my soul good to off a few

Yup suck them up with syringe.ONLY UNDERNEIGHT OR ON DIEOFF. Be carefull if your gunna use peroxide. You could also use diluted iodine. Shoot the solution on the nudis, come back and suck them up. Just takes alot of work, because this needs to be done every couple of days.

 

[Triggreef]

Never had these but did get a colony that had zoa eating nudis. I can't imagine they would be world's different, but fwe kills zoa eating nudis so maybe it would work for the Monti version? Maybe worth a shot. For what it's worth it was a much higher concentration that worked. But it was much better than lugols as well as Bayer. I tried them all.

 

[Willz]

Never had these but did get a colony that had zoa eating nudis. I can't imagine they would be world's different, but fwe kills zoa eating nudis so maybe it would work for the Monti version? Maybe worth a shot. For what it's worth it was a much higher concentration that worked. But it was much better than lugols as well as Bayer. I tried them all.

Interesting. Did you dose the whole tank or just dip them in the elevated concentration of Flatworm Exit?

What was the dosage?

If you dipped, how long did you dip?

Thanks for your input. We are getting quite the compendium of methods to treat these buggers!

 

[Triggreef]

Interesting. Did you dose the whole tank or just dip them in the elevated concentration of Flatworm Exit?

What was the dosage?

If you dipped, how long did you dip?

Thanks for your input. We are getting quite the compendium of methods to treat these buggers!

This was quite a while ago but i dipped and i believe it was about 16 drops / 1ml per 2 cups. And a 5 minute dip knocked them off, but i think it would take longer to actually kill them.

 

[JFrar]

That's really tough Willz, I hope you save most of your frags... I have been fighting these nudibranchs for a while, at first i thought i was having ALK swings and that was a big mistake for me not to check. I lost a few high end encrusting monti's... I have found that dipping in bayer works fantastic, but like everyone says the eggs dont die. I keep dipping and all my montipora have been growing for the past few months, but every now and then i spot one, or a exposed skeleton from a plating monti and i know i need to dip again.

So, i've been meaning to ask on R2R this question....

Does anyone know the turnaround time for these eggs to hatch????? I feel like this is the HUGE question on knowing when to repeat a dip for your corals....

 

[Willz]

Does anyone know the turnaround time for these eggs to hatch????? I feel like this is the HUGE question on knowing when to repeat a dip for your corals....

Good point! Hopefully someone can answer this

 

[Neil Fox]

I heard the incubation period is about three weeks but I am not sure. It's hard to get good data on these things. I repeated the dip on the coral and put them back into QT. So far no more nudis. I also scrubbed the rocks and put them back in the display because i didn't want to stress my acros too much. Anything that even remotely looks like eggs gets blasted off. I have been using Coral RX, I can say that it kills the MENB pretty quick but I didn't take chances. I reckon it's better to lose a coral or two than wipe out my monti population. I don't have anything real fancy but the colonies have good formation. There is another reefer near me that also had them. He was saying they can survive without a food source for 4 months, that seems to be consistent with them just showing up. I did notice some damage to my Lakers scroll, I guess the may eat them also. That is the last frag I introduced and I am wondering if I brought in some eggs with that one.

I hope your having some success Willz. I will try the peroxide trick if any more show up. Thanks Sabelafella for the advice.

 

[Piranhapat]

It's very important to remove all your Monti and Qt them. This way you can dip every 7 days so you can catch any eggs that are to hatch. Nudi can and will live in your tank for a pretty long time even without Monti. It takes some time for them to starve. They will stay in LR if possible dip as many LR you can. Some wrasse are better hunters than others that will keep them in check. But the best way is to remove and watch and dip and dip. Be patient and in time you can win the battle. Others wise they will win the war..

 

[Willz]

I heard the incubation period is about three weeks but I am not sure. It's hard to get good data on these things. I repeated the dip on the coral and put them back into QT. So far no more nudis. I also scrubbed the rocks and put them back in the display because i didn't want to stress my acros too much. Anything that even remotely looks like eggs gets blasted off. I have been using Coral RX, I can say that it kills the MENB pretty quick but I didn't take chances. I reckon it's better to lose a coral or two than wipe out my monti population. I don't have anything real fancy but the colonies have good formation. There is another reefer near me that also had them. He was saying they can survive without a food source for 4 months, that seems to be consistent with them just showing up. I did notice some damage to my Lakers scroll, I guess the may eat them also. That is the last frag I introduced and I am wondering if I brought in some eggs with that one.

I hope your having some success Willz. I will try the peroxide trick if any more show up. Thanks Sabelafella for the advice.

Thanks Neil, I am having success. I went hunting for them yesterday evening and couldn't find any! I wanted to try @Sabellafella method. I really think I nuked them all along with the eggs. I don't see the coloration yet, but I do see them laying down new growth over the old damage. I think it is just a matter of time before they recover. That said, there are probably 35% that the dip killed. It has been over a week and I see no PE or color, just bare skeleton. I am still giving them time, but I think that they are lost causes

It's very important to remove all your Monti and Qt them. This way you can dip every 7 days so you can catch any eggs that are to hatch. Nudi can and will live in your tank for a pretty long time even without Monti. It takes some time for them to starve. They will stay in LR if possible dip as many LR you can. Some wrasse are better hunters than others that will keep them in check. But the best way is to remove and watch and dip and dip. Be patient and in time you can win the battle. Others wise they will win the war..

Thanks, when I dipped, every monti went into the dip from both my tanks along with the frag racks. I didn't dip LR unless the monti was attached to it. At this point I am considering my 75g tank to be the QT tank. If I see them again, I will use one or more of the less harsh dips and methods listed above. I am going this weekend to pick up a 6 Line Wrasse to stay proactive about it.

Thanks for everyone's input!

 

[Usctom]

I went through this with zoa eating nudis a couple years ago. Bayer really does a great job.
They were easy to spot at night with a blue flash light.

 

[Willz]

I went through this with zoa eating nudis a couple years ago. Bayer really does a great job.
They were easy to spot at night with a blue flash light.

Thanks Tom!

 

[Jaag]

Never had these but did get a colony that had zoa eating nudis. I can't imagine they would be world's different, but fwe kills zoa eating nudis so maybe it would work for the Monti version? Maybe worth a shot. For what it's worth it was a much higher concentration that worked. But it was much better than lugols as well as Bayer. I tried them all.

What is FWE?

 

[Willz]

What is FWE?

FlatWorm Exit. A Salifert product to kill flatworms.