Montipora Eating Nudibranches - A cautionary tale :(

[Willz]

I thought a parameter change in my tank when I was out of town nuked a few of my high-end pieces.

Nope, started looking at night and had monti eating nudis in there. I dipped everything coming in, but from what I've read the dips don't get the eggs.

I pulled all the montis and dipped using CoralRx and Lugols. Manually removed the pests and egg bunches I could see. Then bought a mandarin and a yellow wrasse to see if they would keep them in check. No dice.

So after losing about $2000 of high end pieces I decided to use Erik Borneman's Reefkeeping articles potassium permanganate method (http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2007-09/eb/). Ordered chemical grade potassium permanganate and a digital scale so I could measure it. Mixed up 5G in a Rubbermade tote per the instructions for the 50mg/L dosage (~0.947mg). Then dipped all of my montis for 2 hours. Rinsed in tank water in a separate tote. As soon as I pulled them out I knew I had problems. All had a black scale where the living tissue used to be. I placed all back into the tank after rinsing the thoroughly thinking that perhaps this was the browning referenced in the article and they would color up within 24 hours.

Next day I look in on them in the morning. Perhaps 5-6 were showing PE through the black crust. Left for work.

Came home that evening to find all looking poorly and white exposed skeleton showing where the black crust had blown off. I was pretty sick to my stomach so I fed the fish and went to bed.

Next day after work I came home to find even more exposed skeleton. It looked like the black crust was flaking off. So, I set up another tote with tank water and a power-head and blew what I could off of each piece. This took hours since I had 100+ frags. I had to dump the tote several times since the water kept getting real nasty looking.

I noted that many of the thin plating varieties: grafted caps, starburst, vivid's purple, ORA supernatural, Leng Sy, etc. were completely toast. Just white skeleton with no polyps left. However, some of them like one of the JF Altered Ego, JF Beach Bum, RR Crazy T, Rainbow types, VC Juicy Fruit were very pale or grey, but they did show slight PE and I'm hopeful they may recover.

The dipping was done last week on Monday, so I am one week in now. I kept all of them on the racks since if there is any chance I can recover them I want to give them that chance. And I can't quite justify pitching frags and colonies that I spent months acquiring, not to mention the cost.

I haven't seen too many people post up results from this treatment and I thought I would share to hopefully:

* Raise awareness
* Ensure that people are checking their montis before they sell them.
* Folks are quarantining their montis when they get them for a while to ensure they do not get these pests in their tanks.
* Hopefully highlighting the dangers of both the nudibranches as well as the potential "cure".

I will add some pics tonight of the "after" state. I have already posted "before" pics of most of the montis (http://reef2reef.com/threads/yellow...w-phoenix-wwc-kung-pow-rr-crazy.248842/page-6).

 

[Willz]

BTW - I dipped all my montis and haven't seen any more of the nudibranches, so it does seem to work...

 

[oceanslide]

Wow that's sucks big time. Hope they recover!

 

[Willz]

Wow that's sucks big time. Hope they recover!

Thanks

If anyone has some other method of eliminating these buggers I'm all ears.

 

[reeferfoxx]

I had them at one point. I just broke off the caps at the base and they regrew without the nudis.

 

[Willz]

I had them at one point. I just broke off the caps at the base and they regrew without the nudis.

I wish they had been established colonies, but they were frags and it seemed the buggers were eating about a half a frag a night and then moving on to another frag. It was really quick.

 

[bif24701]

I also had them. Started on and one by one spread to others

I used a concentrated Bayer dip. However you will have to redo several times. The key is to get them as soon as the eggs hatch and before they lay new eggs. Just keep dipping 4oz/10ml. Took several weeks but it's been three months and I haven't seen any.

I love Bayer, may not get the eggs, then again they never reappeared on any coral I had already dipped. So it might have to do with concentrations and time. I did 4oz tank water to 10ml Bayer for 10 min. I also used a turkey baster to blast all coral all side in the dip to dislodge anything hanging on.

Bayer worked for me, with a few weeks of dipping. Bayer never once hurt coral, that's important for me.

 

[Willz]

I also had them. Started on and one by one spread to others

That was my experience, too. I tried moving them between racks to since I have four racks at different light/flow levels in the tank since I first they were looking poorly due to light/flow issues. Which pretty much ensured that all four racks had them at the end.

 

[Willz]

I used a concentrated Bayer dip. However you will have to redo several times. The key is to get them as soon as the eggs hatch and before they lay new eggs. Just keep dipping 4oz/10ml. Took several weeks but it's been three months and I haven't seen any.

I love Bayer, may not get the eggs, then again they never reappeared on any coral I had already dipped. So it might have to do with concentrations and time. I did 4oz tank water to 10ml Bayer for 10 min. I also used a turkey baster to blast all coral all side in the dip to dislodge anything hanging on.

Bayer worked for me, with a few weeks of dipping. Bayer never once hurt coral, that's important for me.

Thanks for the information on the Bayer's dip. I considered doing that, but so many folks said it didn't work. Probably because they weren't dipping often enough to keep disrupt the egg laying cycle. Good information!

 

[Willz]

Here are some pics of my frag racks now one week after dipping:

 

[bif24701]

Here are some pics of my frag racks now one week after dipping:

Very convenient that your corals are still mounted on plugs, make dipping much easier.

I have no proof but I feel that a longer (10min+) dwell time, plus higher concentrations (4oz:10ml), and blasting with a turkey baster can take care of eggs too.

I also have had AEFW on my acros, just one dip of all my acros with this method where enough to cure it also. I haven't seen any signs of nudis or AEFW in months.

 

[Willz]

I haven't seen the nudibranches since I dipped them either. If I see one I'll dip in Bayer.

 

[Neil Fox]

I have also been dealing with them. I have no idea how I got them since I dip everything and hadn't added a new coral to my tank in at least 2 months except some snails. I am thinking that they brought some eggs in. They were in my nano so I was a little lucky, it's about 5.6 gallons. I took ou all the rock with corals still attached and dipped them in Coral RX for a full 10 minutes. After I took them out the dip I put those rocks in my frag/QT tank. I removed most of the monti's and clipped the base on a few, remounting them onto frag plugs. I have been keeping a close eye on them and removed anything that looked like eggs from the rocks. I will likely dip the rocks a couple more times in case any eggs hatch. Hopefully this will get them. i'm just lucky I had a spare tank to do this with. Here is a pic of part of the transfer:

The white spot under the Monti Cap on the Green Encrusting Monti is where I noticed them, they cleared that patch in about a day. I also saw a couple on the base of the green digi. I have since put these on plugs.

 

[Willz]

I have also been dealing with them. I have no idea how I got them since I dip everything and hadn't added a new coral to my tank in at least 2 months except some snails. I am thinking that they brought some eggs in.

That sucks! They do work quick. I am pretty sure I somehow had eggs as well. I dipped the snot out of the frags before they went on the rack so I'm sure there were no adults. I'm a firm believer in buying smaller lots and QT'ing them for several weeks to observe and look for any pests.

Good luck on your battle with them, Neil! Keep us posted on how it works out.

 

[revhtree]

Ugg sorry about this but thanks for the warning for everyone else.

 

[sureal00]

I pulled out all the frag plugs and disks from montipora frags and dipped each one in separate cups .Also scrubbed the bottom of each frag and put them in 3 containers with 5 0r 6 in each container and used revive coral cleaner.In addition took frag racks out scrubbed and used algae scraper on all walls of reef tank.After 3 days out of tank.I did a big water change about 75% and added monti's back in.After all that i lost about 4 out of the 18.

 

[Willz]

I pulled out all the frag plugs and disks from montipora frags and dipped each one in separate cups .Also scrubbed the bottom of each frag and put them in 3 containers with 5 0r 6 in each container and used revive coral cleaner.In addition took frag racks out scrubbed and used algae scraper on all walls of reef tank.After 3 days out of tank.I did a big water change about 75% and added monti's back in.After all that i lost about 4 out of the 18.

Thanks for posting!

A 77% survival rate sounds like a success story. It still stinks to lose any, but I could live with that survival rate. I definitely can vouch for the fact that you have to go to extraordinary measures to eradicate these pests. It is also imperative to notice what is happening quickly so that you can get on top of it before it takes over.

 

[Neil Fox]

This is my first time dealing with them. They can work fast to destroy a colony. I actually tossed a couple small colonies that were so infested the didn't look like they had a very good chance. They are surprisingly tough to remove also.

 

[Willz]

From my experience the following species types and their tolerance is listed below:

I dipped my porites, stylos, and pocillipora that were on the racks near the montis since I wanted to ensure I completely wiped them out. The stylos and pocillopora were hard hit by the potassium permanganate dip and I don't think any survived. The Darth Maul Porites looked like it was nuked too, but in the last two days the coloration has come back somewhat and it may pull through.

I had a few frags of Tyree Pink Sand Dollar and that was one of the montis that responded best to the treatment. After the black crust blew off of them they looked very much the same as before. No visible signs of stress or exposed skeleton.

The JF Altered Ego, Rainbow types and UWW Starburst were some of the first to show PE and look better after the dip. Although I did lose one of the UWW Starbursts.

All of the Digitata sp. that were on the rack perished.

The yellow type montis (RR Crazy T, Beach Bum, etc.) looked horrible the first few days, but are now showing some PE.

As noted earlier the thin plating varieties (Vivid Purple, ORA Supernatural, grafted caps, etc.) did not tolerate the dip at all and I don't think many will survive.

 

[drernesto]

Sorry to hear about that. I had once MENB, I had to remove all my montis to a QT with weekly dips of iodine based dip. I had no luck with that. I switched then to ReVive dip which worked great for me. I made 2 dips weekly with double the time and dose and scrubbed the back of the montis. 2 weeks later there no more NB.
I also added 2 yellow wrasses and a meleagris wrasse.