Nudibranch is killing my Zoe's

[dmarott1]

i found what I believe to be nudibranch in my reef tank! I have tried to catch them but I am loosing the battle. I have dipped every piece of coral. I try to catch the nudi's at night when the lights are off. I am temped to take all of my coral out of the tank and first dip them and then place them in another tank. Should I take down the tank? Replace the rock? These little buggers are driving me nuts! Please help

 

[Banes]

If you have zoa eating nudi's then you also need to be looking for the eggs! No dip will affect eggs. If you are all zoa then you have your work cut out for you. The eggs are a spiral configuration like a Cinnabon. Whitish in color. Syphon them off and FYI they will NOT come off easily. You will irritate the zoa's but they will bounce back. If you see adult nudi's dip but look for eggs while doing it. Coral revive, coral rx both work well for adults. Good luck.

 

[Dextereef]

I've been battling them for months now. I have been dipping my zoas every two weeks to kill them off. The big hang up is none of the dips on the market kill the eggs. If you have just two nudis in the tank they will lay hundreds of tiny eggs and then they explode from there. I have used flat worm exit on the whole tank as well to try and kill those that aren't on the zoas. I also set up a second tank just for the zoas to try and kill them off with no luck. At this point I may go to a weekly dip to win. If I'm not successful then I may just take all zoas put of the tank and starve them out. They are some virulent buggers.

 

[Reef Pets]

6 line wrasse along with other species love eating them along with other pests. If you are able to add a wrasse, they are great for getting rid of and preventing a infestation.

 

[saltyphish]

+1 What he said! My 6-line constantly pecks at the rock eating pods and such.

6 line wrasse along with other species love eating them along with other pests. If you are able to add a wrasse, they are great for getting rid of and preventing a infestation.

 

[Banes]

6 lines are great and probably best choice for the job. But you still need to rid the zoas of the eggs. If they are removable put in small Tupperware with saltwater to inspect and use small syringe to syphon off eggs. It can be labor intensive but worth it unless you have a 90+ gallon zoa dominated system. Then it's war and sleepless nights.

 

[Reef Pets]

Typically the eggs will hatch and the wrasse will eat them before they are mature enough to lay more eggs. This ends the life cycle of the nudis. As stated above, getting rid of any visual eggs is recommended.