Montipora eating nudibranch

dpaynter · May 22, 2006

I just discovered that I have these this weekend. I haven't aquired any Montipora in quite some time, so they must have come in (possibly as eggs) on something else.

I am thinking of moving my Montiporas to a separate tank to treat them and hope they will die out in the main tank if no Montis are available.

Does anyone have any guidance on how to handle these?

Do they eat anything besides Montiporas?

How long would a tank have to be Monti free to eliminate the pest?

Has anyone used predators to eliminate them (I've seen hints about certain wrasses)?

Are there any medications that can be used to control them?

Any advice is appreciated.

Rod Buehler · May 22, 2006

Radient wrasse, ornate/christmas wrasse. Most any of the Halichoeres species

NaH2O · May 22, 2006

I'm not sure what their life cycle is (it might be posted out there somewhere?). You will want to give the tank enough time for the eggs to have hatched and no food for the young. If you remove the montis from the tank, any part of the coral that has encrusted can serve as a food source, so you'll want to remove that portion, as well. I'd give the tank about 4-6 weeks of being monti-free before any new montipora introduction.

There were a couple of threads with these mentioned, and what was done for treatment:

Although this thread is not specifically about the nudibranchs, there is some information on using Levamisole against these guys. Scroll down to post #11 - in the quote is more info and a link to a thread on RC: Acro Eating Flatworms

Some pics: Montipora Bleaching

Hope this helps

dpaynter · May 23, 2006

Thanks for the info and the links. I have ordered some Levimasole. I hope I have some good news in a month or two.

jetaero · May 23, 2006

Here is a picture of mine from last year in QT...

I eradicated them, by brushing the undersides of the colonies in tank water with high amounts of iodine in it... As well, I would put them into a container, and use a pipette to pull of the adults.

I had 3 colonies that got it, and was able to save 2 of them.

A 2 hour dip in levimasole works well though.

As well, like most nudibranch, they have specific feeding habits and will only touch the Montipora corals.

-Josh-

Sherman · May 23, 2006

There was talk a while back about "GoldOomed" being able to take care of these guys. It's not available in the US any longer, but I found three bottles on eBay last year, so I bought them. I've not yet had the opportunity (if you dare call it that) to use it yet.

At the same time, another couple of club members have had these, and had good success with manual removal. Unlike AEFW, these are more easily visible and therefore manually extractable.