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Montipora Digitata eating Nudibranch?


Slayer33

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So, I got my first SPS on the weekend (Saturday), I didn't dip the coral, my fault... I trusted my LFS since its a small shop and this is my 5th coral purchased from him.. he says his corals are generally clean.. but I think the one I got on the weekend had a bad hitchhiker.. I noticed a few hours after I placed my new monitpora digitata in my tank a small mucus looking blob beside it.. it had white specks in it.. I thought maybe it was snail eggs or something..

 

anyways, 2 days later I see these white things that look like tiny slugs with branches off of them.. I tried to keep an eye on it while I searched the internet for a description of good/bad.. I think it is a bad nudibranch, so I pulled it out with tweezers.. later I read they could be monitipora eating nudibranches... so I looked closer at my coral and saw 2 more of them on the coral.. I picked them off.. I haven't seen anymore since.. but am worried now that I have a pest that will eat my corals in my sleep!

 

I've attached the pic of it.. its hard to see, was quite tiny.. maybe 1/8" long.. I'm wondering if there is anything I can do to get rid of these if there are more?

 

 

20170220_121529.jpg

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You look to be correct in your ID. To eliminate you will have to remove most SPS coral for 3 months and treat in a QT tank. They propagate asexually and very quickly. (about 100 eggs/time and become adults in a weeks time)

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chipmunkofdoom2

Yep, that's it. I lost a green monti cap frag to nudis and can confirm. They're actually sort of beautiful animals. Until you look at the expensive coral they just munched on and killed.

 

To the best of my knowledge, MEN don't eat corals other than Montipora. If you remove all the montis from your tank for a few months, the remaining nudis and the ones that hatch will die off.

 

I was like you, I was fortunate enough to have my monti eating nudi experience early, before my tank was full of beautiful and expensive corals for the nudis to eat. Personally I'm grateful that I had that terrible experience early. It's a good lesson that no coral is safe, and that the only way to be safe is to QT everything and anything that goes into your tank.

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Hmmm... Thanks! I don't have anywhere to quarantine the corals.. it was a cheap piece to test out with that I fragged into 3.. I might put them on one of those frag trays maybe and keep an eye on them and if I see a nudibranch pick it off..

 

Will these nudibranches eat my other corals? I only have the 1 sps, the rest are zoanthids, GSP, hammer and torch corals

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14 hours ago, Slayer33 said:

a Coris Wrasse I think is too big for my 12 gallon tank.. how about a six line wrasse? or some other wrasse?

 

6lines are evil.  I think a small yellow coris wrasse would do fine in a 12g.   I don't know their growth rate but mine hasn't grown much.  He's about 2", but I got him when he was super tiny though under 1".  Very active fish. 

 

I had nudi. in my older 28g.  I got rid of them by siphoning every single one I saw with a plastic pipette and carefully inspect/dip the Montis that could be removed for nudi eggs.  

 

 

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I haven't noticed anymore last night... I've started up a small nanocube6 last night to use as a quarantine tank in my basement.. I think it'll be good to have a spare tank running incase I run into things like this or if something needs to be isolated.

 

I'd like to add a wrasse but I think the bioload on my tank is maxed out.. I was wanting a wrasse or a royal gramma as a last addition but I don't know if I can do that without compromising my current tank residents.. I have 2 clowns, a yellow watchman goby for fish, for inverts I have a cleaner shrimp, pistol tiger shrimp, porcelain crab, 6 hermit crabs, 9 snails..

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