Powerheads and Blue Velvet Nudis

[goody]

I had tried keeping my red planaria flatworm problem to a minimum by daily siphoning, but after going on vacation for 2 weeks, their numbers have exploded. I didn't want to use FWE, so I purchased some Blue Velvet Nudis, and I'm going to pick them up today. I'm very concerned about them getting sucked up in my powerheads. What would be the best way to try and keep this from happening while still getting good flow for my sps.

If one of these nudis does get sucked up, how much do I have to worry about toxins? And would just a large water change and running carbon take care of those toxins?

Thanks,

 

[Bongo Shrimp]

IDK about toxins but cover up ALL intakes with sponges or mesh or filter floss and make sure they are completely covered.

 

[Mike&Terry]

IDK about toxins but cover up ALL intakes with sponges or mesh or filter floss and make sure they are completely covered.

+1

We used the nudi's a couple of years ago in our prop-tank/refugium which had (2) Maxijet powerheads (1200 and 600). We covered the intakes w/sponge sleeves.

I am no expert on these nudi's, but I did try to do some research on them before my purchase. There isn't a whole lot of information available on them and while I could find plenty of posts on the net that said they produced toxins, I could not find a single post where someone's tank suffered any adverse effects when the nudibranchs died. We purchased ours from LiveAquaria and there is no mention on their site about any toxins/poison/venom being produced by this nudibranch (as they do for sea cucumbers, sea apples and boxfish).

Having said that, we still kept a close eye on the tank and made sure we had fresh saltwater on hand to do a quick water change in case we saw any signs of stress. 2 of the 3 nudibranchs disappeared in our tank (no idea what caused their demise and never found any remains). The third was removed and was passed on to another tank.

 

[goody]

Thank you both for your reply. I did purchase some nylon tights I plan on slipping over my Tunzes, but wondering if the sponge sleeves might work better. I bought four of them and they all made it through the first day no problems and they got right to work on my red planaria.

 

[goody]

Well, I got busy with setting up my classroom with school starting soon, so I didn't have time to put on any sponges or the nylon tights. Last night around 11pm, I went to check on the tank when the lights were out and noticed the water was very, very cloudy. Got my flashlight and checked the powerheads. 2of the 4 nudis had gone through the powerheads. Pieces of them were still stuck.

I was really worried about toxins and possible tank crash. I did have carbon running, but I didn't have any water ready for wc because I had just did a wc earlier that day. I stayed up until 2:30am, keeping a close eye on my coral and when I woke up at 5am, all was still good. Appears these nudis are not that toxic. In fact, PE during the cloudy water was almost better than normal.