Slow zoa growth due to nudis?

[jafoca]

I have had most of what is in my tank for over three months now, and some of it has not seen any growth at all.

I have noticed tiny zoa nudies on one of my pieces a couple times. Is it possible that these nudis are limiting the growth of my zoas significantly?

After I saw them I dosed with FWE a few times. It seems like I am not able to dose it often enough to keep them from coming back however - eggs are resistant blah blah I know, but how then can they be eliminated with FWE (or iodine dip...)?

I just found a rather large (in terms of my nudies...) nudi right today. Reomved him and dosed FWE again... I guess I should do a iodine dip.

What is the procedure for that? These nudies have never done any damage from what I have seen, but still pesky..

 

[gflat65]

I'd definitely set up a QT and start dipping. One fish that will has been known to take care of the nudi's is a yellow Coris wrasse (not sure it is really a Coris because I usually relate that genus to larger species and this one stays smaller, but could be wrong on my relation). Fish are always hit or miss, though, and they will never likely eradicate the pest, just keep it down to nuisance instead of killer level.

What I usually do for dips is similar to Mucho's dip. I pull several tupperware type bowls for holding/dipping. One is for incoming (saltwater), one for freshwater with the Lugol's dip, and one with more salt water for after the dip (I bought some I knew were infested, so I dipped en masse). In, say, a one third gallon-ish flat tupperware bowl (semi shallow for more corals to fit), I'll fill it about 2/3 full (ahh math) with fresh RO water brought to temp by floating in the tank I'm pulling zoas from prior to the dip. I leave it floating until I'm ready to dip. Put the dippee's in one of the saltwater bowls (smaller one because it will be emptied more often). I drop 4-5 drops of Lugol's into the 2/3ish of 1/3ish of a gallon and mix it up. Then drop the zoas in. After ~15 minutes, I start pulling the smaller colonies. With an incandescent light a few inches off the colony, I pick through the polyps with a toothpick and magnifying glass to remove dead nudi's/spiders and pull eggs. Then they go in the second saltwater bowl. Once that round of dip is finished, I start the next batch and move the dipped back to a freshly cleaned tank (small QT). I'll renwe the dip after the third round of consecutive dips. Try to keep the temp constant at all transfers just to reduce a little stress (that's why I float the RO water). I usually repeat for four weeks or so. I'm not one who likes the idea of getting bugs, though. Lost too much in the past. Never any zoas (not even the ones I bought knowing they had nudi's), luckily, but before I QT'd, I had every SPS bug you can get, it seemed. I've never had to pull zoas from a display, but to know they are gone, I'd leave the display without food for the nudis for about four weeks. The four weeks may be an off the hip number, but after all else you will have gone through at that point, you'll figure you would rather be safe than sorry. Zoa nudi's seem to lay eggs mostly on polyps, so you could leave them in, but they could come back. Of course, nothing guarantees they won't come back...

 

[kappaknight]

I've had a case of the nudi's at one point. Do a 2x dose (double the recommended amount) of flatworm eXit for an hour or so then do a water change and run carbon after that. It took care of my problem real fast and I didn't have to dip anything.

You can also try to catch a nudi and do like a drop of the flatworm exit in some water to see if it'll kill it. I did the test and it did work after like 15 minutes.

 

[gflat65]

It's the eggs that create a problem, since nothign kills them... They'll keep hatching. You can likely get them under control, though, and prevent any real losses. Just be careful in trades, etc. I'm of the mindset that you should inform anyone you trade with or sell to so they will be more informed and be more critical through the QT process. Someone having something like nudis, etc., won't necessarily turn me away from the trade/purchase, but I'll definitely spend more time making sure they are clean. I need some coral prophilactics. Then I've just got the corals to use them (imagine the training sessions).

 

[JGoslee]

I agree with the post above. The eggs are what you need to worry about. I had nudi's when I first started out. What I did was pull all my frags and colonies out of the tank and place them in a bin with tankwater and some lugols. I then carefully inspected each frag for nudi's and eggs. Picking them off with a pair of tweezers. I did this a few times.