Montipora Nudibranch

[JAKos]

This morning i found a montipora eating nudibranch on the base of my encrusting montis plug, it turned a bit pale white a few days ago so i guess this explains it. i tried to get it off but it fell into the sand bed, well how do i eradicate these guys? i heard a qt tank and dipping/scrubbing every 3 days for a few months perhaps like 6 months?. problem is i don't have a qt tank for corals and haven't added anything that could have introduced them for the past 1-2ish months, even if i do set up a brand new tank like a 10 gallon wouldn't the montis get stressed by being in a new tank and unstable parameters? also one of them are encrusting on a rock as well, any help would be appreciated.

 

[BiGGiePauls33]

This morning i found a montipora eating nudibranch on the base of my encrusting montis plug, it turned a bit pale white a few days ago so i guess this explains it. i tried to get it off but it fell into the sand bed, well how do i eradicate these guys? i heard a qt tank and dipping/scrubbing every 3 days for a few months perhaps like 6 months?. problem is i don't have a qt tank for corals and haven't added anything that could have introduced them for the past 1-2ish months, even if i do set up a brand new tank like a 10 gallon wouldn't the montis get stressed by being in a new tank and unstable parameters? also one of them are encrusting on a rock as well, any help would be appreciated.

Most wrasse's will hunt them down, especially 6 line and hoevens.

 

[ClownWrangler]

This morning i found a montipora eating nudibranch on the base of my encrusting montis plug, it turned a bit pale white a few days ago so i guess this explains it. i tried to get it off but it fell into the sand bed, well how do i eradicate these guys? i heard a qt tank and dipping/scrubbing every 3 days for a few months perhaps like 6 months?. problem is i don't have a qt tank for corals and haven't added anything that could have introduced them for the past 1-2ish months, even if i do set up a brand new tank like a 10 gallon wouldn't the montis get stressed by being in a new tank and unstable parameters? also one of them are encrusting on a rock as well, any help would be appreciated.

Don’t waste your time picking them off manually. You will never get all the eggs. Alot of people have reported success with the Potassium permanganate treatment in this article. Not so much with the garlic.

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2007-09/eb/index.php

As for the tank. It will have to go without any monti for at least 6 months. Maybe more depending on who you ask.

 

[JAKos]

Don’t waste your time picking them off manually. You will never get all the eggs. Alot of people have reported success with the Potassium permanganate treatment in this article. Not so much with the garlic.

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2007-09/eb/index.php

As for the tank. It will have to go without any monti for at least 6 months. Maybe more depending on who you ask.

Interesting, will look into that. so looks like i will have to get a temporary qt tank for the corals then, however how will that work with the water being brand new and i imagine parameters not being stable.

 

[ClownWrangler]

Interesting, will look into that. so looks like i will have to get a temporary qt tank for the corals then, however how will that work with the water being brand new and i imagine parameters not being stable.

I'm not sure. I'm about to do the treatment because I have some too. I'm going to put the treated frags in a separate acrylic isolation box and just run the aquarium water through a sponge filter and UV sterilizer into the box to prevent reinfestation. This may be excessive though. Maybe you could do the potassium permanganate dip on the plugs and then put them high on a frag rack and get a wrasse to eat any that might be in the substrate. I'm not sure if anyone has ever completely eradicated them that way though. As far as I know, pp is the only thing that kills the eggs. note however that only zoas and montis are known to survive this treatment, so don’t treat the whole tank.

 

[vetteguy53081]

CoralRX dip will rid of the nudibranch and the eggs but may upset the monti not that the nudibranchs are doing that already. There are cases where a simple freshwater dip will cause the nudibranch to bloat, rupture and die BUT very risky to the monti itself.
Safest method is to siphon the nudibranch(s) as you see them. IF you do see eggs which are tiny, dipping wont put them down but DO scrape them off.

 

[JAKos]

I should have CoralRX somewhere so i'll try that, opinions on a certain tank size to seperate the montis from the DT? or would a simple 10 gallon work and could i use the DT water for it.

 

[Amstar]

I know some people use Bayer insecticide - do a search on reef2reef

 

[ClownWrangler]

I should have CoralRX somewhere so i'll try that, opinions on a certain tank size to seperate the montis from the DT? or would a simple 10 gallon work and could i use the DT water for it.

According to the manufacturers website, it requires numerous dips, indicating that it does not kill to the eggs. But I guess its worth a try. It seems that this method would also require tank transfer to a new qt tank after each treatment to be effective. More work than necessary IMO.

Montipora Eating Nudibranchs - Coral Rx Don't Risk It Dip It!

Montipora Eating Nudibranchs are a type of aeolid nudibranchs which are known to feed on coral. It is important to keep these parasites out of our aquaria.

coralrx.com

 

[vetteguy53081]

I should have CoralRX somewhere so i'll try that, opinions on a certain tank size to seperate the montis from the DT? or would a simple 10 gallon work and could i use the DT water for it.

10 gallon acceptable

 

[vetteguy53081]

According to the manufacturers website, it requires numerous dips, indicating that it does not kill to the eggs. But I guess its worth a try. It seems that this method would also require tank transfer to a new qt tank after each treatment to be effective. More work than necessary IMO.

Montipora Eating Nudibranchs - Coral Rx Don't Risk It Dip It!

Montipora Eating Nudibranchs are a type of aeolid nudibranchs which are known to feed on coral. It is important to keep these parasites out of our aquaria.

coralrx.com

Recommendation but not necessary. Ive dealt with these things and its simple dipping. The eggs are the challenge but the OP has been given options

 

[ClownWrangler]

Just took this picture of my monti with cheap 60x cell phone clip microscope. These are the eggs. It wouldn’t hurt to clean off the ones you can find before treatment. I also found the nudis floating around in the tank and on glass 12 inches away, so they do get around.

.

 

[jdiefenbaugh]

Depending on how many Montipora sp. you have, the easiest way is to cut small, clean frags, dip and move to another system, and throw the rest in the trash. I dealt with them on large scale, and they are a PITA. Potassium permanganate was too harsh on the corals, IMO. Then run fallow of Montipora for at least 6 months. I had them come back after a very long fallow period, FWIW.

 

[JAKos]

Thanks for the help, i'll setup a small 10 gallon qt tank and go the coralrx route. if that doesn't work then i'll do the potassium permanganate or another method, thanks for the help!

 

[JAKos]

Also would i have to do anything different while dipping them since one is encrusted on a rock? the rock isn't that big and i can pick it up.

 

[ClownWrangler]

Thanks for the help, i'll setup a small 10 gallon qt tank and go the coralrx route. if that doesn't work then i'll do the potassium permanganate or another method, thanks for the help!

Don’t use the potassium permanganate. I tried it on my spongodes monti because it was already mostly eaten by the nudis and didn’t have much to lose. I soaked it for 2 hours in the 60mg/l concentration and it killed the monti. The experiment that I referenced has a major flaw. He noted that the solution had turned brown fairly quickly, which is what happens when the PP is used up and no longer active. In my case, I didn’t have a lot of excess organics on the frag, so the concentration remained full strength the full 2 hours, which killed the monti. The results form that experiment are useless as a reference. It only indicates that PP is an effective treatment, but offers no usable information as to the correct concentration or duration. It's possible I would have had greater success with a 30 min soak, but I dont have extra frags to experiment with.

I bought some coral RX. It doesn’t kill the eggs, but at least it’s safe for corals. I think the smart thing to do is to treat all frags, even non-montis several times over several weeks as instructed by the coral RX website before adding them to your tank. Its the only way to be sure all the eggs have hatched and you kill all the nudi hitchhikers. Nudis can lay eggs on other frags, so the simple one time treatment that many people use is a false sense of security reinforced only by luck.

 

[Mickeyt1reef]

CoralRX dip will rid of the nudibranch and the eggs but may upset the monti not that the nudibranchs are doing that already. There are cases where a simple freshwater dip will cause the nudibranch to bloat, rupture and die BUT very risky to the monti itself.
Safest method is to siphon the nudibranch(s) as you see them. IF you do see eggs which are tiny, dipping should put them down but DO scrape them off.

I would have to disagree with coral rx in ridding the eggs. I dip in dayer followed by coral rx. I got a beautiful branching indo like a an elk horn branching type. Orange polyps blue skin. Dipped in both put in qt with six line. Observed for three weeks with no signs. Cut two branches of re-dipped in rx and glued in dt. They quickly encrusted. Two months later observing the large encrusted plug every thing seemed fine. Quick dip in rx no signs of pest. Into dt. Then BOOM. INFESTATION! Totally sucks!

 

[vetteguy53081]

I would have to disagree with coral rx in ridding the eggs. I dip in dayer followed by coral rx. I got a beautiful branching indo like a an elk horn branching type. Orange polyps blue skin. Dipped in both put in qt with six line. Observed for three weeks with no signs. Cut two branches of re-dipped in rx and glued in dt. They quickly encrusted. Two months later observing the large encrusted plug every thing seemed fine. Quick dip in rx no signs of pest. Into dt. Then BOOM. INFESTATION! Totally sucks!

Meant not the eggs and at the end, you will notice I said to scrape them off.

 

[Mickeyt1reef]

Meant not the eggs and at the end, you will notice I said to scrape them off.

Yup got ya. They definitely suck!

 

[Bam327]

I have never dealt with Monti eating Nudi's but i have dealt with the zoa eating variety and I beat them by plucking them out one by one. It took awhile but knock on wood they are gone and I didn't have to put any chemical into my tank. I also have a 6 line so I'm sure he helped, but he wouldn't touch the Nudi's if they were on a zo. I'd try manual removal first and see how it goes.
FYI i also spent a lot of time with a turkey baster, blowing them. My thought was, if there were small ones I couldn't see that blowing the coral around might get them up into my water column where the wrasse can find them.