Zoa eating nudi

[Dono]

So again, I've pulled 3 nudibranchs off some expensive zoas in my tank. I've been siphoning them off when I see them (I've only spotted 5 in total, but when you see one there are many more), but I'm just not sure how to control them. Because of my rock work and coral growth in my tank it is impossible to pull out whole rocks or corals to clean them properly. So obviously I'm seeking some new or alternative methods of killing these buggers off once and for all!

Questions:

-Are there any specific livestock that are purchasable and are natural predators of this species of nudibranch?

-I've heard Flatworm Exit will kill them, but does anyone have experience with this large scale? (I have plenty of RoX carbon from BRS to toss in my reactor when necessary)

-Is there a way to spot their eggs? (Do they even lay eggs?) More information on how they reproduce would be great as well. I've been thinking of sacrificing a polyp or two and tossing some nudis in my QT tank with some zoas to see how this process works, but Im not too sure how practical that will be.

[Dono]

:bounce1:

[BLKTANG]

I do a Lugol's Iodine dip on every new Zoo,Zoa,or Paly i come across.This works well ....


http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1109378&highlight=zoo+nudibranch

[firebirdude]

Awww. I opened this thread expecting to see a zoa eating a nudi.:(

[BLKTANG]

Awww. I opened this thread expecting to see a zoa eating a nudi.:(

Open the link.

[firebirdude]

Open the link.

Awww. I opened this thread expecting to see a zoa eating a nudi.:(

:jester:

[btingle85]

I had a ton of them in my 40. They were destroying my zoas. I triple dosed with flat worm exit and got a yellow coris wrasse. Haven't seen a one since...

[btingle85]

Oh, you can see the eggs if you look closely. They lay them on the zoa polyp. I'm pretty sure the FWE does not kill the eggs so you would have to dose a few weeks later. Also note that a zoa eating nudi branch will turn the same color as the zoa it's munching on, I thought this was pretty cool.

[BLKTANG]

Love my Coris.

[Wannabe29]

I had them...they reduced my zoa colony to 1/3 its original size before I figured out what was going on and finally got rid of them. From what I noticed, the nudis don't stray far from the zoas. They might even spend the days at the base of the colony, in and amongst the polyps or possibly in/under the rock they polyps are on.

FWE does work on them, just not the eggs. I'd probably dose every 3 days or so. Or, what I did, was wait until a few hours after lights out, grab the colony out of the tank and put it in a fresh water dip for a few minutes. The zoos will be close up and be fine, the nudis won't. They don't seem to be able to tolerate more than a minute in fw. You could repeat this process every few days until you no longer see any nudis on the zoas at night.

The key is to dip the colony at night. You'll basically be using the zoas as bait for the nudis to ensure that you kill as many as possible with the dip.

[ganjero]

Questions:

-Are there any specific livestock that are purchasable and are natural predators of this species of nudibranch?



-Is there a way to spot their eggs? (Do they even lay eggs?) More information on how they reproduce would be great as well. I've been thinking of sacrificing a polyp or two and tossing some nudis in my QT tank with some zoas to see how this process works, but Im not too sure how practical that will be.

I've had them twice in two of my previous tanks. I tried different methods but I was lucky that twice I controlled them with wrasses. The first time it was a yellow wrasse and the second a six line wrasse. I believe the key was very low feeding that forced the wrasses to “hunt” for food. But as usual, using predators is not always guarantee to work.

Yes you can see the eggs (Not my pictures)
http://cdn.saltwaterfish.com/d/d7/525x525px-LL-d7ad6b3c_vbattach202050.jpg
http://static.keebali.com/thereeftank.com/gallery/files/9/8/3/6/9836nudi_eggs_original.jpg
http://www.suttonreef.co.uk/Image_Bucket/IMG_2039.gif

[AquaReeferMan]

I had issues with them until I added a Six Line Wrasse. Haven't seen any since then.