Zoanthid eating spiders!!

FishyFishFish

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Rhetorical question but is buying bulk shipments from Vietnam 'doing it for the love' or doing it to make money?

I agree that it is not always sensible to reply immediately to threads like these; I've seen this go wrong before when a vendor tries to jump in and defend an error without thinking about it first, but they've now had several days to think about how to respond. They can also contact all of those potentially affected, by email, but they have not done so (yet).

The longer they wait to post a response (if at all), the more it looks like they are burying their head in the sand and hoping it will go away. In all honesty, from a business sense they may be correct in this approach as this will be largely forgotten about in a couple of weeks. However, this thread will always be here and people will still find it when searching for Zoa spiders in the future (a quick Google search actually picks up a review on their Facebook page and a thread on R2R, both in Dec 2020, that mentions Zoa spiders - i.e. 2 months before the sale that my ones came from) and without their side of the story any future readers will only see the negative.

Everyone makes mistakes and has problems in business, it is unavoidable. The mark to me of the good companies versus bad is how those mistakes are rectified. Strangely, if following this incident I could see a proactive response from them, I would likely be more inclined to purchase from them again than if I had never received the spiders in the first place! Other people may have differing opinions but a 'we're really sorry, have your money back' to those who have complained is not sufficient in my eyes; that is just gambling with their customers reefs. They know that if they keep quiet the worst they will be liable for is a small number of refunds for those people who notice and complain.

Referring back to the suggestion of 'doing it for the love', if they really cared about reefers and their reefs then they would contact people to let them know of the potential issue (even by private email if they didn't want to post on a public forum). If they choose to stay quiet then they are, in my opinion, putting profit first.

I may be being completely out-of-order here as hitchhikers are clearly part and parcel with reefkeeping, but in my limited experience these are not your average hitchhikers. They don't seem to be hugely common from what I have read, and they also seem to be particularly difficult to discover and eradicate.
 

iMi

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Can't really argue with anything @FishyFishFish said.

Some good news. I am making good progress on eliminating them. I am pretty sure I've picked off all the adult spiders. I would say total of about 25-30 total. Last night, I found what seems like the last three. Nothing new this morning and some of the half dead zoas are opening up remaining polyps again.

So, now I need some advice. It is my understand that any polyps harboring egg would remain closed. Here's what I'm thinking...

Option 1: Remove the frags with polyps that won't open, frag those closed polyps off, dip the remaining (healthy looking) polyps again and put them back.

Option 2: Remove and discard all partly closed frags that have had spiders on them?

Option 3: Leave everything the way it is now and just keep monitoring for spiders?
 

jprovido

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So all of the frags I received from AquaSD.com are infested with zoanthid eating spiders I have pulled 6 off so far and cut off a bunch of shredded polyps, what should I do? How do I make sure my tank is not infested I have had these frags in my tank for a few weeks and it is a zoanthid dominant tank....
Sorry to hear that. Im not sure if dipping it in bayer will kill it but that usually my go to dip. I’ve ordered from aquasd with no issues in the past.
 

shblink

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Sorry to hear that. Im not sure if dipping it in bayer will kill it but that usually my go to dip. I’ve ordered from aquasd with no issues in the past.

Unfortunately Bayer doesn't kill them. I had an infested colony of zoas from a certain vendor and I had it in Bayer for close to 6 hours. The spiders were still moving around. Ended up tossing the entire colony in the trash.
 

iMi

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Dipping is not effective as the eggs can remain inside the closed polyp and spiders themselves are in the mucus membrane and therefore not affected by the dip. Everyone who reported problems on this thread went through the full dip before adding them to the tank. All of us ended up with an infestation.
 

FishyFishFish

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Still no words from the Vendor? They must really be waiting for this thread to just get buried and forgotten.

It would appear that way. They've been posting plenty in their sponsor forum, regarding their website updates and ebay sales, in the meantime.
 

iMi

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Meanwhile, me eradicating spiders like...

War Running GIF by CuriosityStream
 

Lopezag1994

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Stumbled upon this post. Just started a reef tank (120) January. Got a bunch of corals from the February live sale. Thought to myself. Mhmmm my zoas have been dying oddly. Pulled one out. Dissected it. Boom. Spiders. Could not be more furious. I have easily $500+ of zoas in the tank. A bunch from WWC. @AquaSD will be getting a phone call and email tomorrow. Funny thing is. I’m also receiving a shipment from them tomorrow for a dead on arrival and couple other corals I added. I’m usually very good about dipping but clearly doesn’t do anything for spiders. Wow. Just wow. They will never be getting my money again.
As others have said transparency is the issue. The second they got wind of this. Everyone who purchased during that sale should have been notified. Hearing “they’re in it for the love of the hobby and not money” cracked me up. This is horse ****.
 

Lopezag1994

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Stumbled upon this post. Just started a reef tank (120) January. Got a bunch of corals from the February live sale. Thought to myself. Mhmmm my zoas have been dying oddly. Pulled one out. Dissected it. Boom. Spiders. Could not be more furious. I have easily $500+ of zoas in the tank. A bunch from WWC. @AquaSD will be getting a phone call and email tomorrow. Funny thing is. I’m also receiving a shipment from them tomorrow for a dead on arrival and couple other corals I added. I’m usually very good about dipping but clearly doesn’t do anything for spiders. Wow. Just wow. They will never be getting my money again.
As others have said transparency is the issue. The second they got wind of this. Everyone who purchased during that sale should have been notified. Hearing “they’re in it for the love of the hobby and not money” cracked me up. This is horse ****.
 

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iMi

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Yikes. I'm sorry to see you're also struggling with the same problem. I believe I have been able to eradicate them by moving out healthy specimens out of the tank and pulling spiders off the infected ones several times a day. They seem to mostly come out after lights out, so I would go back with a flash light and pull them off with long tweezers. Several times a night. They are a nightmare.

This seems to be the only viable solution at the moment. I found repeated dipping to be ineffective. Just stressful for the coral. I wish you best of luck.
 

FishyFishFish

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I posted a thread in Vendor Feedback but @AquaSD hasn't attempted to reply to that either (although I didn't tag them so it is possible that they haven't seen it).

There has also been another thread about AquaSD posted since this Zoa spider one:

Aqua SD Sells the Dirtiest Coral In The Game | REEF2REEF Saltwater and Reef Aquarium Forum

They have some good stuff but I won't be buying from them again. Due to their poor response to this issue I tried a different vendor and was very happy with them, so there is no need for me (or anyone) to go back to AquaSD.
 

Cell

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Disappointing if they are knowingly shipping spider infested zoas. I think the line has to be drawn somewhere in terms of what is an acceptable level of pests/hitchhikers for major vendors to sell. A bit of GHA or bubble algae is one thing, but zoa eating spiders that withstand coral dips can be absolutely devastating and should have been a full stop for the vendor.
 

Viva'sReef

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What's really crappy is that this thread was left to die, just like I said it would without a single word from the vendor. Nadda, nothing, zero, zip. What a joke

Lets keep bumping this until they say something......
 

Lopezag1994

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The unfortunate thing for me is currently my only QT tank is setup for copper treatment for fish rn. Had a blue tang show some signs of ich so running fallow. I don’t have the time nor resources to setup an entire tank just to QT AquaSD’s dirty corals.
My semi half-butt QT method is to float, dip, frag rack on side of tank to look for any algae, aiptasia, etc... rinse repeat. Has done me so well in the past. Just wasn’t enough for these spiders. I’m only 3 years into this hobby; these spiders don’t seem like your ‘common’ pest imo.
I grabbed every zoa from them and tossed it. My beautiful growing zoa garden isn’t worth the $50 in zoas I got from them. I have AIO, Illuminaties, Rasta, bob marleys from WWC that I’m super worried about now.
Like I’m legit worried to even place these acans and replacement torch I just got in this morning.
I hope everyone here can spread the word to not purchase from AquaSD ever again. Or at least until this is publicly dealt with by them. I know for dang sure WWC would never treat customers like this. Will just stick with them for now.
 

iMi

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What's really crappy is that this thread was left to die, just like I said it would without a single word from the vendor. Nadda, nothing, zero, zip. What a joke

Lets keep bumping this until they say something......

I agree, but what are they to say now? From what I understand, not all zoas they sell had the infestation. Only some, which they said were housed separately. I am still surprised they haven't reached out to potentially affected buyers. That's really inexcusable. I don't think I'll buy from them again either.
 

iMi

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The unfortunate thing for me is currently my only QT tank is setup for copper treatment for fish rn. Had a blue tang show some signs of ich so running fallow. I don’t have the time nor resources to setup an entire tank just to QT AquaSD’s dirty corals.
My semi half-butt QT method is to float, dip, frag rack on side of tank to look for any algae, aiptasia, etc... rinse repeat. Has done me so well in the past. Just wasn’t enough for these spiders. I’m only 3 years into this hobby; these spiders don’t seem like your ‘common’ pest imo.
I grabbed every zoa from them and tossed it. My beautiful growing zoa garden isn’t worth the $50 in zoas I got from them. I have AIO, Illuminaties, Rasta, bob marleys from WWC that I’m super worried about now.
Like I’m legit worried to even place these acans and replacement torch I just got in this morning.
I hope everyone here can spread the word to not purchase from AquaSD ever again. Or at least until this is publicly dealt with by them. I know for dang sure WWC would never treat customers like this. Will just stick with them for now.

I totally understand your concerns. I have some beautiful peaces (all frags and a small colony) of zoas from other sources. Here's the good news. Most of them made it. I even moved some of them already as they looked healthy and open. I even found one that had a spider perched on it, which I immediately removed. Cleary didn't lay any eggs and that coral is doing well. It has since grown two new polyps. In fact, I am pretty sure if the polyps are open and looking healthy they are most likely egg free. Check the sides of the stalk for eggs or small spiders hiding under a layer of mucous. If clean, you're likely good. These spiders don't seem to spread very quickly or reproduce rapidly.

I got them eradicated fairly quickly but it took a lot of diligence and spot checking every few hours. I am 99% sure everything in the QT right now is spider free. Just being observed.

Also, for what it's worth, I found no spiders on anything other than zoas. They seem to be exclusively interested in the polyps, although I've read they can feed on some softies, like toadstool, Kenya tree, and other leathers if they don't have polyps to munch on. I am pretty sure you'll be fine with the others. I also have a torch from them, which is beautiful by the way, and it has been pest free. Hope this helps!
 
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elcapitan1993

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Rhetorical question but is buying bulk shipments from Vietnam 'doing it for the love' or doing it to make money?

I agree that it is not always sensible to reply immediately to threads like these; I've seen this go wrong before when a vendor tries to jump in and defend an error without thinking about it first, but they've now had several days to think about how to respond. They can also contact all of those potentially affected, by email, but they have not done so (yet).

The longer they wait to post a response (if at all), the more it looks like they are burying their head in the sand and hoping it will go away. In all honesty, from a business sense they may be correct in this approach as this will be largely forgotten about in a couple of weeks. However, this thread will always be here and people will still find it when searching for Zoa spiders in the future (a quick Google search actually picks up a review on their Facebook page and a thread on R2R, both in Dec 2020, that mentions Zoa spiders - i.e. 2 months before the sale that my ones came from) and without their side of the story any future readers will only see the negative.

Everyone makes mistakes and has problems in business, it is unavoidable. The mark to me of the good companies versus bad is how those mistakes are rectified. Strangely, if following this incident I could see a proactive response from them, I would likely be more inclined to purchase from them again than if I had never received the spiders in the first place! Other people may have differing opinions but a 'we're really sorry, have your money back' to those who have complained is not sufficient in my eyes; that is just gambling with their customers reefs. They know that if they keep quiet the worst they will be liable for is a small number of refunds for those people who notice and complain.

Referring back to the suggestion of 'doing it for the love', if they really cared about reefers and their reefs then they would contact people to let them know of the potential issue (even by private email if they didn't want to post on a public forum). If they choose to stay quiet then they are, in my opinion, putting profit first.

I may be being completely out-of-order here as hitchhikers are clearly part and parcel with reefkeeping, but in my limited experience these are not your average hitchhikers. They don't seem to be hugely common from what I have read, and they also seem to be particularly difficult to discover and eradicate.
This frag has been for sale on their site since when they said they said they fixed things you can clearly see a spider in the polyp, I was looking just last week and it was still there for sale

7F4DB9D7-723A-455A-9830-98505B207B8B.jpeg
 
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Viva'sReef

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I agree, but what are they to say now?
How about SORRY??? Or at least publicly acknowledge it here on this forum. If someone else stumbles on this thread and doesn't see a response that's more damaging to the reputation then having sold spider frags in the first place. At least IMO
 
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