Tiny Sea spiders (pantopoda?) on Monti

[gloo]

Can you kill those pesky small sea spiders with Lugol's Iodine dip? I found some on a monti digi frag I purchased from a lfs yesterday. I was checking to see polyp extension after the lights went out and saw a dozen or more of them on the frag and removed it to quarantine immediately.
I did a search and tho it mentioned using Tropic marine pro coral cure, I wasn't able to find out if an iodine dip would do the same.
I could just try it, but wanted to find out if anyone had any experience with using the iodine first ( even if the iodine kills the adults, I'm interested to know if it can kill the eggs as well).

 

[gloo]

Well, dipped them in iodine (8 drops of lugols iodine in 1 gal) for 15 minutes. A few of the spiders dropped off the frag, but many still had the strength to hang on to the frag even when placing the frag in front of a powerhead. Hate to spend 23 bucks on tmpcc when the frag was only 9.99.

 

[gloo]

I upped the concentration of Iodine ( 15 drops of Lugol's Iodine in 1 gallon ) and left the frag in the dip for 30 minutes. This time around, the spiders were all dead and came off the frag easily when swished about.
The LFS went and tried both Iodine and Flatworm exit, and they found that flatworm exit worked much better than lugol's iodine in killing these pesky buggers.
Also, they found some more information stating that the eggs are carried by the male, and that the larval stage of the spiders are not believed to be pelagic. Both good signs that I should never see these in my tank at night again... I hope.

 

[Krish]

Hey "gloo"! Not sure what advise to give you here, but incase you were wondering why you haven't gotten any replies from Kevin, this thread should explain things. He's out to sea with his son. Best of luck...

http://www.reeffrontiers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=16894

 

[gloo]

Oh, no worries. Seeing as there was very little info I can find on the tiny pycnogonids, I figured responses would be slow at best. That's awesome that he gets to spend some time with his son at work.

 

[NaH2O]

gloo - check out this article: And Along Came A Spider

Hope it helps you out a bit, at least to get more information about them.

 

[gloo]

Yeah, read that one, but I didn't like the part where it said,
"Frankly, if they are found on corals in any tank, the best option would likely be to remove the coral from the tank, and simply dispose of it."

The iodine killed off the spiders, but I wont know for sure till after the lights go off. At least the digi has some polyps showing already, so hopefully, I wont have to deal with sea spiders at 2 in the morn.

 

[Carl]

Did you put the coral back in the main tank?

Carl

 

[gloo]

Yeah, I did. I dont have any lights for the quarantine tank so I placed the frag back in to check on it. It's not the best idea to throw it back in so soon, but I'm fairly certain the total of 45 minutes the frag spent in iodine did the job.

 

[ATP]

Gloo-

I had the same on my Monti, new arrival, about 2 years ago. I took some curved forceps and manually removed them. I did this twice over the course of a couple days. Never had them come back.

It sounds like you have it under control, but I thought I would share my experience.

Cheers

 

[NaH2O]

ATP - Welcome to Reef Frontiers!!!

 

[gloo]

That's good to hear. That reinforces what the lfs found out regarding the eggs not being deposited on substrate/coral/etc.
I have not seen any spiders on the monti, and the frag is doing well so far ( I didn't realize some monti's polyps extend during the day, the encrusting monti polyps only come out at night).