alindell
Valuable Member
While some pests like parasitic copepods are common and destructive they are for the most part easily killed with interceptor. There are some pests though that are much more destructive. One of my favorite types of coral are montipora and montipora eating nudibranches can quickly take over and kill colonies.
Some experience and observations of these nudis... They are very small fuzzy looking white critters that resemble berghia nudibranches, but there are small differences. They take their time to kill off montipora. I noticed one of my Montis over the course of months slowly die off and I thought it was just a random coral death until I paid closer attention. These nudis look like little fuzzy white bits usually underneath and around the edges and folds of montipora. You will hardly ever find them in the day time as they come out to eat at night and hide during the day. These nudis can reproduce extremely fast if there is enough food. Within a matter of days eggs will hatch and mature to repeat the life cycle. Montipora will for a long time seem colorful and happy until they get overwhelmed.
TREATMENT
I've tried multiple dips and these nudis die pretty easily with most dips. Revive, coral RX, iodine will take them out. They die pretty fast. The problem is these nudis move around and don't always attach themselves to the coral so you can dip all you want and it may not matter. They will crawl around the tank and potentially lay eggs on or near other corals and all it takes is one egg cluster to hatch and repeat the cycle. There is no in tank treatment and dips do not kill the eggs except for one I'll explain below.
I'm trying kz flatworm stop to see if it does anything but I still see nudis popping up after a couple weeks of using it. Maybe time will tell
Natural predators... Various fish like wrasses, butterfly, angels, will eat them but these nudis hide during the day and these fish will more than likely never get enough of them to keep them in check. They may reduce the numbers and it will just take longer for monti's to be eaten.
So what can you do if dips, fish, and no in tank treatment work and exist. Well there is only one way to save your Monti and it's definitely not the easiest. You have to remove the monti's as best you can. Most likely if you have big colonies, you will have to leave most of it behind and start a dip protocol on the montipora in a seperate tank. Use something like revive and coral everyday for a week then next week every other day. Observe for a week and see if anything survived.
Downside... The eggs will survive dips and if one hatches and you don't kill them the nudis move around it may survive and lay eggs in your new set up basically starting a new infection in another tank repeating what you are trying to avoid.
Solution... Use Potassium Permaganate. You can buy this on Amazon. Just get a pure version. You will need to remove the monti's and place them in a seperate container. Fill the container with 1 litter of tank water. Now for the important part. Using a MG scale measure out no more than 50 mg per liter of 99% pure potassium permanganate powder and no less than 35 mg per liter. Add this to the container and stir. Remove and rinse coral with fresh saltwater after 40 minutes. Be very careful not to get any potassium in display tank. This stuff is toxic and is probably best to use glasses and gloves around it. It's turns a bright purple pink color on water. 50mg is very hard on the coral and may kill the coral but for sure kill the nudis and eggs!!! It will turn the coral brown and the coral may look dead, but please do not throw it out. Give the coral some time. It will come back. Every monti i dipped I thought was a goner, but came back. I've tried this on setosa, spongodes, Digi, cap and other. Even on an acro which survived. This also works well with zoa's and other soft coral.
So far every time I dipped I find no trace of the nudis or eggs. It completely dissolves them. The coral will turn brown and look dead but after a few weeks it will come back.
This is a one and done dip. You remove monti's from display, dip with potassium permaganate and leave seperate from the display tank. Now you can not add any more montipora to the display and without food the nudis will starve but just know this could take months maybe even 6 months!.
While potassium permanganate is a hard dip on corals and turns them brown temporarily, this dip kills eggs while the others don't. That means it's a one and done. No repeating dip cycles. You just have to wait for the coral to color back up
Hope this helps someone. Potassium permanganate has made this process way easier. If there was a one and done in tank treatment that would be awesome but there isn't unfortunately.
Some experience and observations of these nudis... They are very small fuzzy looking white critters that resemble berghia nudibranches, but there are small differences. They take their time to kill off montipora. I noticed one of my Montis over the course of months slowly die off and I thought it was just a random coral death until I paid closer attention. These nudis look like little fuzzy white bits usually underneath and around the edges and folds of montipora. You will hardly ever find them in the day time as they come out to eat at night and hide during the day. These nudis can reproduce extremely fast if there is enough food. Within a matter of days eggs will hatch and mature to repeat the life cycle. Montipora will for a long time seem colorful and happy until they get overwhelmed.
TREATMENT
I've tried multiple dips and these nudis die pretty easily with most dips. Revive, coral RX, iodine will take them out. They die pretty fast. The problem is these nudis move around and don't always attach themselves to the coral so you can dip all you want and it may not matter. They will crawl around the tank and potentially lay eggs on or near other corals and all it takes is one egg cluster to hatch and repeat the cycle. There is no in tank treatment and dips do not kill the eggs except for one I'll explain below.
I'm trying kz flatworm stop to see if it does anything but I still see nudis popping up after a couple weeks of using it. Maybe time will tell
Natural predators... Various fish like wrasses, butterfly, angels, will eat them but these nudis hide during the day and these fish will more than likely never get enough of them to keep them in check. They may reduce the numbers and it will just take longer for monti's to be eaten.
So what can you do if dips, fish, and no in tank treatment work and exist. Well there is only one way to save your Monti and it's definitely not the easiest. You have to remove the monti's as best you can. Most likely if you have big colonies, you will have to leave most of it behind and start a dip protocol on the montipora in a seperate tank. Use something like revive and coral everyday for a week then next week every other day. Observe for a week and see if anything survived.
Downside... The eggs will survive dips and if one hatches and you don't kill them the nudis move around it may survive and lay eggs in your new set up basically starting a new infection in another tank repeating what you are trying to avoid.
Solution... Use Potassium Permaganate. You can buy this on Amazon. Just get a pure version. You will need to remove the monti's and place them in a seperate container. Fill the container with 1 litter of tank water. Now for the important part. Using a MG scale measure out no more than 50 mg per liter of 99% pure potassium permanganate powder and no less than 35 mg per liter. Add this to the container and stir. Remove and rinse coral with fresh saltwater after 40 minutes. Be very careful not to get any potassium in display tank. This stuff is toxic and is probably best to use glasses and gloves around it. It's turns a bright purple pink color on water. 50mg is very hard on the coral and may kill the coral but for sure kill the nudis and eggs!!! It will turn the coral brown and the coral may look dead, but please do not throw it out. Give the coral some time. It will come back. Every monti i dipped I thought was a goner, but came back. I've tried this on setosa, spongodes, Digi, cap and other. Even on an acro which survived. This also works well with zoa's and other soft coral.
So far every time I dipped I find no trace of the nudis or eggs. It completely dissolves them. The coral will turn brown and look dead but after a few weeks it will come back.
This is a one and done dip. You remove monti's from display, dip with potassium permaganate and leave seperate from the display tank. Now you can not add any more montipora to the display and without food the nudis will starve but just know this could take months maybe even 6 months!.
While potassium permanganate is a hard dip on corals and turns them brown temporarily, this dip kills eggs while the others don't. That means it's a one and done. No repeating dip cycles. You just have to wait for the coral to color back up
Hope this helps someone. Potassium permanganate has made this process way easier. If there was a one and done in tank treatment that would be awesome but there isn't unfortunately.
