Need Exoert Advice Nate and Brandon

[cmoresps]

i have those blasted monti eating nudis, they must have come in on one of the pieces last month, any natural enemies that will eradicate them? say a certain racoon butterfly or other preditor?

[manderx]

i haven't heard of a predator, i just look over it by hand and dig them out with a toothpick. i was lucky, the ones i had were bright white (i've seen some that were tan and alot harder to see). i had them ~2 years ago and it didn't take too long to get rid of them. after the first pass, i had a few popup a few weeks later and none since. though if they are in a huge colony with lots of nooks and crannies you can't get to, i'd bust it up now into a billion frags. also look for the eggs- you'll know them when you see them.

one of the tanks i'm watching for someone while they're out of town just got hit by them. he had just gotten a tennisball sized colony of encrusting monti from reefermaddness right before leaving for xmas break. one day it looked fine, the next it was half gone and there were 20-30 nudis on it. i was only able to save about 2 square inches...

[cmoresps]

fortunately these are white too, that bites on your friend's colony, fortunately these suckers are spread over a few colonies, whats strange is they are selective, or atleast to show some preference, I had them a year ago in the main tank, they got under a piece that was imbedded in rock and wiped it out, all I could do is frag, fortunately these suckers are on cultured pieces now so I can at least pull the piece out and pick em off, I am thinking of some form of toruos death for them, have not come up with one good enough yet though (just kidding, even though they deserve it, they are just doing what they evolved to do)

thx

[AQUAN8TOR]

Tom, sorry to hear about the problem. I recently had the same issues with a couple colonies at work. I spent hours with tweezers and toothpicks to no avail. Like manderx said, look for the eggs!!! I missed a couple of clumps of eggs & the nudi's came back while I was away over the xmas vacation. Seems to have stopped for now........crossing fingers.....



PS. I hope to come over soon......

[AQUAN8TOR]

To answer your question a little better, I don't know of anything that would prey on the nudi's that wouldn't also prey on sps.....:mad2:

[cmoresps]

update-

confusa was infested, even in the base of the monti where it joins to the base, broke the uninfested off, and picthed teh rest.

Due to my high degree of success with Diablo, I might give him a shot it next time ;)