[reefkeeper59]

Take a carpet knife or chisel and scrape under them as low as possible. Picture them not being there and your trying to scrape off some rock. You'll prob save 50% or higher. depends on the family. Other option would be to get hot water and inject onto the zoo with a baister, while syphoning on the down side of the hot water flow. May take two people. The hotter water will cause the nudi to jump off.

Not sure what good it would do to notify a retailer about the issue, unless they still have a consistent supply of zoo's. If the zoo's wher stocked in a tank that went void of zoo's for a week or more, they probably died out. You can look in the tanks they came from for closed zoo's.

A nudibranch is essentially a snail without a shell. Over generations they have devised a form of survival (shield,defense), this being the natural poison from the zooanthus. They consume the poison from the zoo and store it on there upper body. When a preditor strike's, they get a very bitter taste and reaction to the poison. This makes them undesirable to fish and invertabrates.

There is a lot of speculation as to some parasitic eating wrasses that may cure the problem by consuming them. I had a large population of nudi's and dipped the invested colonies in very warm if not hot water (150 Degrees) that killed many of the adult nudibranch. I then purchased a 6 line wrasse and a manderin, thinking the wrasse was going to eat the remaining nudibranch. I took a fiberglass rod (3/8 diamter) and put the tip on a few nudibranch that survived the dipping. The nudibranch would stick to the rod. I then raised the tip into the water column and shook it loose, hoping the wrasse would eat it up. It would grab it, spit it, grab it, spit it and swim away. Obvious that it wasn't going to eat it. However, With just a few nudibranch left in the tank, I watched them (zoo's) very closely and removed any remaining (visible) nudibranch. I noticed that when I touched the zoo's and they closed, the wrasse would come behind me, inspect the area and nibble. I continued manual extraction of the adult nudibranch (half dozen or so). It's been three weeks and I haven't see a nudi yet. I didn't even get a chance to use the lugol's. All my zoo's are open and thriving.

Preditors won't eat the adult nudibranch because of the poison (bitterness), yet will consume the egg's. Egg's can't consume poison until they hatch and are larva stage. End result, once the adult nudibranch are removed, the wrasse get's the egg's and problem solved. Hopefully.

I have 11 large zoo colonies and 12 acropora frags coming in tomarrow. They will be dipped before tank entry.

Good luck!