Something eating my rainbow monti

[Jan]

I woke up this morning and looked in the dark tank with a flashlight and saw a naked patch of flesh on my rainbow monti, shaped like a crecent moon, smack in the middle.

I took it out and dipped in iodine solution. I could not see anything at first in the way of hangers-on...but I did see a second naked flesh area about the size of a pencil eraser on the back of the monti, also right in the middle. No missing flesh or discoloration around the base.

After soaking in the dip and blowing with a turkey baster about 100 baby snails with dark, pointy shells came off. I also saw 2-3 oval-ish snail things that I thought were baby stomatella (but I can't be certain they weren't AEFW's either...except that I thought AEFW's don't eat montis??).

Unfortunately I don't have a macro lens for this Nikon Coolpix camera. I'm afraid these pics are useless for ID purposes. It's the dip water. Can you see anything useful? I know I have lots of baby snails in my tank...I thought they were all stomatellas but obviously not.

I don't know what I should do. The rest of my corals look healthy except for a new millepora colony with tissue receded at the base. That one was dipped before putting in my tank and nothing came off at all.

I don't have a QT setup with appropriate light. I could set up a 10 gallon tank but would need a light appropriate for corals.

Help?

 

[Herefishyfishy]

Jan, any chance the Monti was stung by a neighbor?

Why did you dip them in iodine before complete diagnosis?

Has the coral browned out from the iodine?

What makes you make the leap from snail like things to AEFWs?

Any other montis in the tank? Any 1/16th inch furry little dots on them?

 

[Jan]

Jan, any chance the Monti was stung by a neighbor?

I guess it's possible, as it's pretty close quarters. But I don't remember anything touching it.

Why did you dip them in iodine before complete diagnosis?

Panic, I guess. I have a huge dread of a scourge like AEFW's wiping out my corals.

Has the coral browned out from the iodine?

Nope. It's still beautiful.

What makes you make the leap from snail like things to AEFWs?

Because like I said in my post, in addition to the many baby snails there were also 2-3 oval shaped shell-less slug-looking things in the dip water, kind of translucent on the edges but with a brown bit down the middle.... They didn't undulate like and they were killed by the iodine dip.

Any other montis in the tank? Any 1/16th inch furry little dots on them?

Yep, I have a superman, a sunset, and an orange digitata. I don't see anything like you describe on them but I'll have to take another look when I get home from work this evening.

Thanks for your response. How should I have gone about diagnosing this?

 

[Herefishyfishy]

The main two things that injure Monti's:
1. Being stung by a neighbor
2. Monti eating Nudis (MEN)

In my experience, #1 is the main culprit though I have had many a battle with MEN.

Best to take your time. Unless you were experiencing a very fast destruction. Patience is our best weapon against tank enemies. Better to do too little than too much. For most corals, hard to improve on good water, good flow, and good lighting.

 

[Jan]

Well, the crescent shaped bare patch on the front of the monti happened in the last 12 hours and there is nothing with sweeping tentacles in the vicinity, and no other SPS has touched it in that spot recently. So I don't know how it could have been stung there. THe bare spot on the back I don't know how long it's been there so anything is possible.

I've looked at pics of "MEN" and I don't think I have those but I could be wrong. I haven't seen anything that looked like them in my tank.

I had one other coral with bare patches a couple of weeks ago--an acro--and when I looked at the bare patches I saw little brown worms on it. This one later RTN'd in my makeshift QT tank. Also a monti cap with a bare patch at the edge, also with little tan worms on it. So I've been hyper-alert for corals with bare patches lately, and am admittedly paranoid about AEFW's after Trido got them recently.

 

[Herefishyfishy]

Any anemones in the tank? Everything glued down? Good water flow over the corals? The little brown worms could be consuming dead or dying tissue. Try running some carbon, you could have some chemical warfare.

 

[Jan]

No big anemones in the tank but I do have a couple of majanos and a whole bunch of jewell anemones that I need to blast outta the tank. I'm not sure if these little ones move around?

Not everything is glued down in the tank as I recently bought quite a few new corals and frags that are placed in the tank on their plug/bases. I think you may be onto something re: the chemical warefare. I'm already running carbon in the tank but it's been about 10 days since I changed it so I will put in a new batch.

I do have good water flow with my 4 tunze nanostreams.

 

[Herefishyfishy]

Montis do not like pest anemones. Where they touch, they lose tissue. Snails and urchins bump things around, watch for it.


"When you hear hooves, think horses not zebras"

 

[Jan]

lol... I was reminding myself of your catch-phrase on the way in to work this morning, "Think horses, not zebras." :lol:

So I take it that having a large number of baby snails come off of one coral isn't a big concern from your perspective? Then there's no type of snail that eats coral flesh?

 

[Herefishyfishy]

lol... I was reminding myself of your catch-phrase on the way in to work this morning, "Think horses, not zebras." :lol:

Came from the TV show, House

So I take it that having a large number of baby snails come off of one coral isn't a big concern from your perspective? Then there's no type of snail that eats coral flesh?

I only worry about little snails in my clams, and never had any problem

 

[class clown]

Tagging along to see what you find out tonight when you get home. Boy i hope it is just a sting from another coral or soemthing and not the alternative MEN you've presented here b/c that's a darn pretty coral. Like you Jan, I'm in this paranoid state of bugs/worms/parasites and am on a quest to make sure I can ID these sorts of things and learn how to treat them early. I haven't heard of any snail predators besides the cone snails on clams.

P.S - FWIW, I would've dipped it in iodine too. Mike - feel free to virtually smack me if I need to be set straight, but I would think the dip could only be good (minus of course possible browning).

 

[Herefishyfishy]

Ben, one of my Monti gurus is Marty Finn who's also very knowledgeable on Zoas. In his words regarding using sufficient strength iodine to kill MEN, "the corals that don't die are severely browned out." Since then, I have tried everything else and had the best luck so far with interceptor dip. Not sure why, but they disappeared after the dips with no browning. No studies, just anecdotal luck? I still think that unless you have a proven identifiable epidemic, doing the least accomplishes the most. This opinion could be all wet

 

[Jan]

MEN are pretty visible with the naked eye, are they not? They're always white and they have that unique structure, so they stand out against a colored background? What are there particular things to look for besides the creatures themselves?

 

[Herefishyfishy]

I wouldn't call them pretty visible in all cases. Against red plating monti, they stand out pretty good. Against most others, they are fairly camouflaged. They tend to sit on the dead part in lieu of against the pigmented polyps. Best seen when feeding along the edge of a dead spot. The last time I fought them, never saw any on my orange digi, but the dead spot grew. Finally found them hiding under the frag at the glue line. They are VERY VERY tiny in most cases. White fuzzy oblong, smaller than a pin head. Often about four times the size of the comma on this page, sometimes smaller. The biggest monster I have grabbed, was about an eighth inch.

 

[Damsel13]

Bummer Jan! Tagging along also.

 

[Jan]

Took out the rainbow for another exam. I found two little animals at the upper corners of it, that had tentacles like my stomatellas do. They were whitish and about 1/8" and fat. I pulled them off with my tweezers and they were slimy like little slugs. I could not tell if they had the classic MEN body shape. I couldn't see them any other place. Other than that, I saw quite a few mini-cones from some kind of mini-fanworm, and last but not least, a mini-majano was floating around at the bottom of the water container. It may have played a role in the stinging or just been hanging on to the base. I don't know. But the monti is definitely spotty looking now, with the crescent bare spot on one side and two bare spots on the back (round).

Any advice? I see no bare spots on other montis but my purple haze frag is showing a white-colored mantle (is that the right word?) at one corner and that is relatively new. The polyps are all still there they are just showing up against the white instead of the regular color.

 

[Herefishyfishy]

As a betting man, I would double down on my chance that the majano was the problem. Majanos create little dead spots on most montis, especially the encrusting ones.
Get rid of all of them.

Avoid dips whenever possible except for new corals coming home.
Once you see a real MAN, you never forget:lol::lol:

They look exactly like you'd expect. Shaped like any larger nudibranch except white and furry like a dust mop.

 

[Herefishyfishy]

Here are three good pictures of MEN ( borrowed):

 

[Jan]

well, all I could see was the white head with tentacles. After I grabbed them with my tweezers they turned into small balls of slime. I'm hoping they were just stomatellas hanging out and not MEN.

thanks for posting the pics and for all your help.

 

[class clown]

yeah, thanks for the pics Mike - very interesting. I have my fingers crossed for ya Jan that the majano is all it was. Hopefully in another week, you'll give us an update that all is fine and it was just the majano.