Monti-eating nudibranchs?

[melev]

Could these be Montipora eating nudibranchs perhaps? I tried my best to get a picture of these. They are the size of fleas or smaller. Maybe lice-sized.



I saw a few in a group a few days ago, and now there is a larger patch of these in one section and this grouping is separate. If they are, what is the preferred removal method? Tweezers?

[MIKE NY]

It's hard to tell from the pic, but they could be. I saw a few in my tank a few months ago and I got a yellow wrasse(halichoeres chrysus)...haven't seen one since and all my montis are fine now. Do a search there are plenty of ways to eradicate them...good luck.

[ctxmonitor]

Yup, that is definitely those *&(#$ little bug.. Its gonna be hard to completely remove from the system once they are introduced. Maybe only completely removing and QT the tank without montipora for a few months..

[melev]

It is in my frag tank, so that isn't an issue. I have a Lemon Meringue Wrasse in my reef, so I could remove all I can see, then put it in my tank and let Dole take care of 'em.

Thanks for the quick replies. I hope to get a better picture of them in the future for my ID page.

[tangwang]

Melev, make sure and look closely for egg patches as well. they are usually in the same area as where the nudi is feeding....



Matt

[melev]

Thanks for the tip! I hope those are roughly the same color?

[tangwang]

They are much smaller than the adult nudi's, and very hard to see. I've seen them grey colored, and maybe a shade of dirty green. Not sure what color to label the eggs exactly, lol, but they appear in groups. I've scraped what looked to be 20 or more eggs off of the same spot smaller than the size of a pencil eraser... here is a halfway descent pic I found. Scroll down to the next to last pic..


Matt

[melev]

I'll go work on that coral now, rather than later.

[tangwang]

Added a link for you in my last post Marc



Matt

[melev]

That's awesome, and looks precisely like what I've got. I better read it now. Thanks!

[MiddletonMark]

Marc - I just saw one on my glass this morning, and shot this series of grainy, poor photos.


Don't mess around, they're terrible.
I first figured out what I was seeing on this cap I've had for a few years ... they had eaten mostly the part I couldn't see from the front - and I dipped/scrubbed, but too late for this one.
I've decided to keep it whole, dead ... and eventually get a frag of a frag back.

But it's my cautionary tale, the largest coral I've lost in this hobby

Before:

After:


Remove them today, death to the little buggers

[wrassie86]

If there in a Q tank,you can always try red/blue leg hermits(Not scarlets).and not feed them.its amazing the array of things they will eat if they have no other food source.Ive seen mine eat monti nudis and red bugs.But thats a bare tank with only the hermits and infected corals.And its not overnight it takes alittle time.

Good Luck.

Mark
thats a shame,that was a very nice piece.

[MiddletonMark]

Originally posted by wrassie86
thats a shame,that was a very nice piece.

This sort of unfortunate circumstance exactly the reason why I frag things I'm pretty sure I can get this exact cap back again ... though might go with a different one next time.

Thanks for the reminder to frag my newer Acropora. Better a slightly smaller piece to grow out and a very happy friend than the possibility to never have that coral again.


Hopefully my sad pictures will have the next person who finds the nudis and reads this thread moving quickly to eradicate them.

[wrassie86]

Originally posted by MiddletonMark


Thanks for the reminder to frag my newer Acropora. Better a slightly smaller piece to grow out and a very happy friend than the possibility to never have that coral again.

Yup,i agree.as i'm getting more and more nice pieces.and wanted to do the same thing.But seems people i have met with stable tanks are having problems of there own.weather it be r bugs,nudi's,flatworms.I ve been running problem/pest free and stable for several months(knocks on wood).But its about time, as i battled just about everything for the previous year.

[melev]

Just got finished looking in my frag tank with a flashlight and was disappointed to find those nudibranchs on multiple corals. So I'm going to treat the tank with Oomed as recommended in that article.

The only livestock is corals, and a single Peppermint Shrimp and perhaps a tiny pistol shrimp, as well as stomatella, some astreas, and lots of tiny baby brittle stars. Will these items die during treatment, or should I try to pull out all that I can find?

Now that I know what I'm looking at, I think I see eggsacs everywhere, so I'd rather treat the tank rather than doing a dip method. Unless I dip everything into a 5g bucket full of medicated soup!

[melev]

Alright, I decided I need to try to pluck off a few and quickly realized how hard they are to remove with my current forceps. Maybe some very sharp tweezers would do the trick. I saw eggs too. UGH!

Anyway, you know I love to take a picture of this stuff, so here are 17 images for your consideration. They were put into a tiny tiny jelly (sampler) jar, which was then placed on top of a regular jelly jar (Bon Maman is the brand if that helps give you a sense of scale) and put one of my 5100K refugium bulbs next to the jars for some lighting. Now that you see the size of the 'studio', I do hope this helps you realize how small these are.

[melev]

That is the tip of my index finger on the side of the glass, to give you an idea of the size of this little guy.

[MiddletonMark]

Fantastic pictures, Marc.

So much more than I can do on my camera - and others as well.

Best of luck on the treatment!

[melev]

Thanks Mark. I hope I can get rid of them, and wish I'd noticed them much sooner.

[tangwang]

Great Pics! Those are some of the best I've seen of those dreaded nudis! Let us know how the treatment goes (I know you will). I don't know if I hsve the cojones to treat the entire tank, but if I did, I'd pull anything other than monti's out of there, including snails, shrimp hermits.........



Matt

[melev]

That is what I was thinking. The more I looked, the more I found a few hours ago. Argh. I saw a couple on the acrylic, under a coral. Using forceps, I tried to pluck them off and put them in the jar, and discovered little white eggs there too! Great, they are happily breeding.

The good news is this is just a frag tank and I could basically toss out everything and start anew, but I'd rather destroy these pests and keep the frags growing.

Another plus is I know what I'm looking for now, so I can inspect the corals closely before moving any to my reef.

[tangwang]

I know you'll be glad when this nightmare is over. makes you wish you had redbugs instead, huh



Matt

[tld]

Great pictures Marc! Thanks for sharing. Looks like you've got yourself a pretty nasty infestation of the buggers. IME, they are tough to get rid of because they are so easily overlooked, especially in a reef tank. You are lucky that yours are in a frag tank where you can easily take everything out and inspect daily until you get rid of them. Good luck!

[melev]

If any of y'all have a source for Oomed, please let me know. Or a tiny laser.

[ol'reefer]

Marc,

I am going through the same thing. Unfortunately, this is in my main display. My Purple Reef Chromis eat them when they are free floating, but don’t directly take them off the coral. I am siphoning them off, but I have a feeling I am not getting the majority of them. I have very large colonies of Plating Montipora (24" +), so removal is not an option. These things have to have a natural predator, so I am going to look into other ways of removing them. On a side note, I have not added a coral to my system in quite a while, so these guys have been in my system for a while, but I never noticed any damage until last week....