Monti-eating nudibranchs? - Page 2

melev · #26 11/07/2005, 10:42 AM

Uh oh. Well, one thread told me to put a Yellow Coris Wrasse in the tank to eat the. I do have a hungry peppermint shrimp that may consume some.

I really think I'll have to end up dipping all the pieces.

ol'reefer · #27 11/07/2005, 11:21 AM

I wonder if Interceptor would work?

gobygoby · #28 11/07/2005, 11:24 AM

Stupid, stupid nudies......DIE!!!

dirtyreefer · #29 11/07/2005, 11:31 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by ol'reefer
I wonder if Interceptor would work?

It doesn't, but I sure wish it did!

just dave · #30 11/07/2005, 03:59 PM

I just went through this and I had not added anything in months prior to this.

I thought about trying to get a handle on 'em with the yellow wrasse but there where so many montis with so many places that a fish couldn't access that I just pulled all the montis out and dipped them. I'll leave 'em out indefinitely.

otolith · #31 11/08/2005, 12:05 AM

That sucks about the nudis. They do look like really interesting creatures. Too bad that wreak such havoc.

BobB · #32 11/08/2005, 01:45 PM

Has anyone tried and been successful at getting these nudibranchs under control by lowering the temp of their tank? In talking about treating acro flatworms, some believe that lowering the temp to 76-77 helps. Haven't tried it myself; just curious.

Bob

gobygoby · #33 11/08/2005, 01:58 PM

my tank stays at 78. unfortunatly, they still live

melev · #34 11/08/2005, 04:02 PM

I siphoned out about 50 of them last night, and got a few more pictures.

However, I saw lots of eggs and they don't siphon off.

And anywhere I saw two of them together, I found eggs. That's surprising, as I would have figured they'd lay eggs individually rather than needing a mate. Maybe it was coincidence, but that is what I observed.

ShallowWaters · #35 11/11/2005, 10:55 PM

One encouraging dip treatment being discussed is pharmacy bought providone iodine 1 ML to 100 ML H20 for three minutes. Most adults are affected, but the eggs are not. Thus repeated dips every couple days are required. It's a good idea t so soak the dipped coral in fresh saltwater to remove excess iondine before it is returned to the main system.

Unfortunately, this treatement is not a whole tank answer and only treats the removed coral. Clearly, the nudibranchs spread out on surfaces hunting for new corals and this makes multiple treatments necessary and short term unless you get lucky. That is, corals can be quickly invaded by free-traveling nudi's.

melev · #36 11/11/2005, 11:12 PM

Thanks for your input. I have a peppermint shrimp in the frag tank, and don't feed the tank anything. All the eggs on one coral vanished. I don't know if they hatched and crawled away, or if they were consumed.

Tomorrow I'm getting a bottle of Oomed from a club member so I'l be treating the corals and hopefully erradicate these pests. I also have about 25 more pictures on my harddrive that I'll be looking at to see if any more need to be added to this thread.

ShallowWaters · #37 11/12/2005, 08:57 AM

fwiw, peppermints never made an impact during my infestation. Neither did six line wrasses added to my frag tank and left hungry. Eggs seem to hatch rapidly. If you don't remove the eggs right away, they seem to be gone next time you look. Good luck & please let us know how you do with Oomed. Maybe we can get somebody to produce/sell it again?

tooshay · #38 11/12/2005, 05:10 PM

FWIW, I took Eric Borneman's advise and called the director of the Omaha zoo (Mitch Carl), who has battled and studied these horrid nudis in their tanks. He said the only thing that has been found effective in the eradication of them is a sheep dewormer called Levamisole (sp?) He said it doesn't kill them, but paralyzes
them and they can be easily blown off with a powerhead. The piece has to be isolated in a separate bucket, and soak for several hours. It has to be repeated as the new eggs hatch. Oomed is a quinine based medication that is no longer available in the US, but will work on these nasties if you can get ahold of some. I FINALLY got rid of them after they destroyed most of my montis. Good luck!

Travis · #39 11/12/2005, 10:47 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by melev

Tomorrow I'm getting a bottle of Oomed from a club member so I'l be treating the corals and hopefully erradicate these pests.

Marc, does this person have a US source for Oomed? Or do they just happen to have an old bottle laying around? Either way, consider yourself lucky for finding some.

MiddletonMark · #40 11/13/2005, 10:29 AM

That's what I was thinking, Travis.

melev · #41 11/14/2005, 02:44 AM

Yes, it is a 3 yr old bottle that was never opened. I'm going to try dipping each piece tomorrow. I need re-read that article once more.

I heard it may be available in Canada and in Germany.

Travis · #42 11/14/2005, 11:38 AM

Well Marc, you pretty much have a bottle of gold.

I would keep it locked up somewhere safe because I'm sure there are a lot of us out there that would do whatever it takes to get our hands on that bottle.

Greg Hiller · #43 11/14/2005, 02:53 PM

Word is that Oomed will not work, didn't seem to have any advantage for me, and I still have a stash of it. I read over Tracie's article as well, but I think I seem to have heard that she is no longer convinced that Oomed has any effect (if you search around for some of the older threads on this I think you will find the same info). At a high enough concentration it will work as a dip, but I think there are better options. The chances of it working as a whole tank treatment is very low IMO. There was a thread a while back where Mitch Carl described the treatment with Levamisole HCl which does work on the Montipora eating nudis, and apparently will also work for Acropora eating flatworms. The treatment was summed up in this thread on the BRS site:

http://216.235.242.50/forums/showthread.php?t=17217

I found a place that sells the Levamisole HCl. While I don't have either the Montipora eating nudis or the Acropora eating flatworms, I would like to occasionally add a new frag without excessive fear. Therefore I have a bottle on the way. The stuff will not kill eggs, so quarantine of new frags is still required.

http://www.americanlivestock.com/pro...ankMonths=null

I did have the Montipora eating nudi's in a frag tank a few months back. I used the iodine treatment that Mark (Shallowaters) mentioned. I wanted to save a buck and not use Lugol's, so I did a calculation based on the % active iodine in Lugols and in Provodine Iodine available frome the drug store. I came up with a formula of using 1 ml/100ml of tank water in a bath for 3 minutes (based on Mitch Carl's recommendations of Lugol's dip). This did seem to work for me. I dipped each frag then blew it off extensively with a turkey baster before adding back to the tank (to make sure they all fell off). The iodine treatment is pretty harsh. I found that while most Montipora's did fine (4 colors of M. digitata, and 4 colors of M. caps [probably M. foliosa]), I did notice that some of my purple M. caps faired poorly several weeks later. The nudi's were gone, but the tissue was damaged too much, and some of these colonies regressed a lot. This might have been do to the fact that the purple M. caps were the ones that the nudi's seemed to always gravitate towards, so these saw several dips.

FWIW, I was successful in eradicating the Montipora eating nudis in my frag tank (have not seen any in about 5 weeks, and I've been checking), and was lucky that the nudi's never made it to my main system(s). I still don't really know how I aquired the nudi's in the first place since I do not recall taking any Montipora frags from anyone in a very long time.

ShallowWaters · #44 11/15/2005, 11:31 PM

Greg's Provodine Iodine treatment, with repeated applications, seems to be effective. It does not instantly kill hatched nudi's, but their grip is loosened and they either fall off or can be blown off as suggested.

Greg, now that you mentioned your frag tank, I'll publicly thank you and give you credit without suggesting you ever had bugs.

Seachem also suggests a high dose of ReefDip make work for nudibranchs - with the caveat that their recommnended doses are known to be safe for most corals and they are not recommending higher doses.

ol'reefer · #45 11/16/2005, 10:18 AM

My corals are just too large to take out of the tank. So I have to siphon them off. My purple chromis' love to eat any free floating ones, but they will not pick them off the corals. I am really hoping to find a natural solution to this problem. What really annoys me is that the only coral that I have added in the past three months has been a blasto and I won that in a raffle......

One interesting thing I have noted with the ones that I have, they seem to be only going after my brown caps. They have not affected my orange, green, purple or any of the encrusting ones (Superman etc..) as of yet. Maybe they are saving them for a midnight snack. Bad humor, I know

kabboord · #46 11/16/2005, 01:18 PM

Hey Melev,
Do us all a favor, and pour some Calcium hydroxide or even better some lighter fluid into that jar and ignite it.
I hate those bastards.

melev · #47 11/16/2005, 04:37 PM

Nice.

I siphoned out about 200 last night from the frag tank. Man, they are everywhere. I'm mixing up some new saltwater now, so that I can dip, treat, and rinse, plus have water change water on hand.

ctxmonitor · #48 11/16/2005, 05:39 PM

Marc, why are you having so many nudi? 200? Thats alot!! Do you have alot of montipora in the frag tank??

palmer59 · #49 11/16/2005, 06:14 PM

Quote:

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

Here you go.

http://cgi.ebay.com/TE327-TETRA-MEDI...QQcmdZViewItem

Mike

palmer59 · #50 11/16/2005, 06:20 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by melev
Nice.

I siphoned out about 200 last night from the frag tank. Man, they are everywhere. I'm mixing up some new saltwater now, so that I can dip, treat, and rinse, plus have water change water on hand.

I added 3 Small Tailed Pencil Wrasse (Pseudojuloides cerasinus) a few months ago and the nudis were gone in a couple of days. Have not seen any since. These wrasses are supposed to be difficult to care for but so for I have not had a problem. The Yellow Coris Wrasse (Halichoeres chrysus) are supposed to work too.

Mike