My Loss is your Gain...Monti Nudi's

[MechanicalEngineer]

Well, the title should say it all.  After looking around on Reef Central last night, and reading 30 billion (ok, maybe a bit of an exaggeration) threads on Montipora Eating Nudibranchs, I decided to check all of my colonies extra well.

On a recently aquired Montipora Digitata, I found the little $*^@#&'s!!!!!  Thankfully, it was in isolation, and could not have spread to other colonies. 

Needless to say, I now have about 13 nice frags of this coral...and one dying encrusted base. 

I will post photos in a few minutes, so no one else has to go through this hopefully. 

I'm going to go eat breakfast/lunch now.  This has just been a bad morning.   :

Nikki

[MechanicalEngineer]

Here we go...pictures.  For anyone unfamiliar with these guys, they love to munch on Montipora species at the base of the coral.  They lay their eggs, and tend to stay right along the line where the coral meets the base. 

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2007-09/eb/index.php
That's a great article on trial treatments, but I had no options available to me, other than fragging the few good bits, and scrapping the rest.

[verper]

What a cute little guy.     Good pics.

[MechanicalEngineer]

Here's it shown a little bit better.  This is the only one I found, and I did not find any egg clusters.  There was no physical damage to the coral...yet.  Rather than take the chance of just removing the one guy, I scrapped the coral.

By the way, this little guy is only about 2mm long, and maybe 1mm in width...TINY little guy.

[micki]

wow, that sucks... 

[verper]

Just keep an eye on all of your monti's for a while.  Where there is one............

[MechanicalEngineer]

This coral was in the quarantine tank, so no worries.  It just makes me mad that I had to bust up a nice pretty piece.  It was about the size of a softball. 

I've already gone through the main display tank to make sure that I didn't have them in there too, but no signs.  This has really given me the heebie jeebies.  I'm terrified that I'll have some sort of pests so bad that I have to tear my tank down. 

[micki]

I would tell whomever you got your piece from to check their system.  I would guess they have more.

[verper]

This coral was in the quarantine tank, so no worries.

Good job Grasshopper! 

I've saved my tank from red bugs, aptasia, flatworms, and hair algae by QTing.

[Joel]

I went thru this with an order of super man monti's I got from solomon about a year ago or so. I was so pissed!!!!! They screwed up every monti I had on hand. I stopped ordering them all together and didn't put any montipora in that tank for about 10 months. They are all gone now but man was that a bad and expensive learning experience. Don't fresh water dip monti's either, I tried it on a few and it immediately made the nudi's let go but it killed the coral. Tim (aquavista) offered me some good advise on dealing with them. I did the dip with the tropic marin and it seemed to kill them off. To bad I didn't quarantine them from the get go, it would have saved me a lot of time and money.


Joel

[MechanicalEngineer]

From what I've read on various other sources, the TM will kill the living nudi's, but not their eggs.  I left the infested base in a Lugol's solution (both are iodine solutions) for about an hour before the nudi disintegrated.  It's not something I'd like to risk. 

Sorry to hear you had to mess with the buggers.  I would've tried potassium permanganate, but I doubt any chemical supply stores were open today. 

[aquavista99]

Check out the attached links below as well. Very nasty pest. Good luck!

http://www.qualitymarineusa.com/article.asp?page=feature&id=FA22AE9A-A335-4F27-A5C5-0913F83DCB60

http://www.e-coralia.com/panel/showthread.php?t=1205  (intense pics...website is non English)

[Riderc82]

Wow good eye, Looking at the picture It almost looks like a Berghia Nudibranch

[MechanicalEngineer]

I wish.  Maybe if it was bigger...more "hairy"...and was munching on aiptasia rather than my montipora. 

Just a report back, all of the pieces I had to frag off because of this monster are looking spectacular!!  It's never looked better!  I'm sad to lose such a big colony, but everything happens for a reason.  I still have the majority of pieces of the coral, and it looks great.