Monti Eating Nudi, is it forever?

[GoodKat]

M*ther F**ki*g G*d D**Mit! abjkfdsakjf! MEN are is the worst. I have a montipora eating nudibranch  infestation which I have been battling for over a month. I am losing the war.  First they ruined a white polyp monti, but now they are attacking my prized center piece red shelving monti. Its been with me since I started my tank a year ago :( I thought I was safe when I removed the invested white polyp, but alas, they spread. 

For you experience reefs are monti eating nudis the herpes of reefing? Are they forever?  If i strip ALL my montis out of the tank and dispose of them, how long will I have to wait to starve these F@@kers out? Do their eggs last forever?  It seems little is known about there life cycle other than dips don't kill eggs. 

 

 

[Muraki]

Eggs always hatch and usually they will starve out within a few weeks. Quarantine your coral, manually remove nudi's that you see and dip your coral every couple days. Stick with it, and I am sure you will knock em out. If you can't quarantine, may have to be more aggressive on the manual removal and dipping schedule. Because if you can see them, then they are most likely already large enough to have laid more eggs. Just have to dip more frequently in hopes you can prevent more eggs from being laid. 

 

I lucked out when I had them by manual removal only, but I was inspecting my corals a couple times a night, and I only have a 22 gallon display. 

[MrObscura]

The life cycle consists of eggs, that hatch within a few day, afterwhich they reach maturity within a week and lay more eggs repeating the cycle. 

 

Now if you only have monti frags that haven't encrusted rock and can be removed entirely it's not too bad. Just take out every monti, dip them, which kills adults but not eggs, and try to scrap off any eggs you see. Repeat this every few days over the course of a couple weeks and you'll knock them out by killing any new batch before they've reached maturity and laid eggs, cutting off the cycle. This is how beat them. 

 

Now the problem a lot of people have is they are hit with them when they have numerous full blown colonies where it's impossible to get every bit of monti out of the tank, and therefore impossible to kill every adult before they can reproduce. The answer then is take out as much monti as you can and go fallow for long enough for them to eat what you can't get and starve. This can take some time as people have waited 6 months only to introduce a monti and discover they still had them. 

 

You could also try introducing a wrasse to the tank as some people report having great success knocking them out with one. 

 

[specore]

I've been battling these as well.   Luckily for me they are isolated to one frag which I was able to remove from the rockwork and separate from the rest of my monti's.  I have been dipping the infected frag 2x per week for probably two months and think I have finally knocked the little shits out.  

 

If I were you I would remove anything possible from the rockwork and dip 2x per week until they are gone.  You will also have to let them run their course with any montis encrusted on the rock.