Zoa Eating Nudibranchs - Dip Your New Frags

[cybermeez]

I just finished getting all my new corals acclimated and in the tank. As usual I spent way too much, but boy do all those new frags in my tank look sweet!

I got lots of zoanthids today and a bit of a surprise as well. I customarily dip all corals except fungia (in my experience they don't always respond very well) including zoas. I'm really glad I do because some of my zoa frags had zoanthid eating nudibranchs along for the ride.

It's my first encounter with this particular critter and at first I thought, "Cool, I got some free Berghia nudibranchs." Still, I never put an unidentified hitchhiker into my tank. I checked for photos online and discovered they were a pest nudi. Dip all those new frags, even the softies. FYI the little beasts look like this:

 

[cybermeez]

Apparently they also fluoresce the color of the zoa skirts they've eaten. In my case, one was red and another green.

 

[Chiefmcfuz]

Dipping may kill the Nudi's but the eggs will not be affected. QT all of those Zoas.

 

[cybermeez]

<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:View>Normal</w:View> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <wunctuationKerning/> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:SnapToGridInCell/> <w:WrapTextWithPunct/> <w:UseAsianBreakRules/> <wontGrowAutofit/> </w:Compatibility> <w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" LatentStyleCount="156"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} </style> <![endif]--> Thanks for the advice Chief. The eggs must be really tiny (the nudis were only about 1/4 inch). I put the zoas in the Mandarin nano tank - which didn't have any corals in it - just them and 2 tiny gobies. Coral Rx recommends repeated dips every 4-8 days during 3 months of QT. Since they will be in there a while I'm really happy that I converted the nano tank's lights to LED.

Dipping may kill the Nudi's but the eggs will not be affected. QT all of those Zoas.

 

[Arati]

I can tell you getting these things out of your reef is a nightmare. manually picking them out 1 by 1 is a horror show. qt qt qt qt