Reef nutrition

Losing a battle before it begins ??

xcaret

xcaret

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Been busy working thanks heaven but I've noticed a fast and catastrophic issue in my little tank MONTI EATING NUDIS !!
I have not introduced anything new in months.
This week I noticed a white area on an Idaho grape and the orange cap, I clipped off those areas and took them out of the tank since I did not want the issue to spread.
last night I spotted a tiny looking thing on the glass, A NUDI and this morning seems like an outbreak took over the tank, will start looking for those bastards. Spotted the purple rim cap with some under it, right where it bleached so most likely they have spread all over.
I find no reason for them to just show in a matter of a week; last thing introduced was a RBTA, just the anemone, no rock where it could have hitch hiked and it was about three months ago.
I have to get to OTA see if they have any Lugols dip and a wrasse possibly.
 
It's bad, really bad...
Silent invasion it was; they are everywhere so I'm not taking any chances, will use some providone, toot brush in the mean time and keep a frag of them after I make sure no eggs are on these frags. Caps and Digitatas...
 
I think we published a Jake Adams article once that recommended a waterpic as being an easy tool for removing nudis and eggs. But I'm too lazy to search the archives for it. I guess it must be somewhere at www.reefhobbyistmagazine.com
 
Thanks !

I had all your RHM magazines but the "recycling" frenzy of my wife took care of them; good thing is online too.
So far RIP pieces
Superman, Poker Star, Idaho Grape, Bright Green, Green Purple Rim, Purple Red, Reverse Poker, Orange Cap, Red and Orange Digis.
I did clip a tiny piece of Pokerstar and some Orange and Green caps.
Last night after dark flashed a light and they they were, munching like there was no tomorrow and the underside of the caps just infested; I have a six line to take care of some bugs but this is just insane.
The good thing is after working on the little tank I went home with a nice frag of Duncans, four heads from my brother's colony.
 
Sucks.

I went through this over a year ago. I believe some have battled monti eating nudis successfully, but in my case, I tried everything and in the end lost virtually all of my montis. I had the same problem as you, plague proportions, large colonies, etc. I tried everything, basting/manual removal, army of wrasses, dips and then finally potassium permangenate.

If you are seriously thoroughly infested like I was, I would remove all of the montis and put them into a quarantine tank. Starve out your display for four months at least. Dip weekly with potassium permangenate (I have plenty if you need some). Frag aggressively. Set up another quarantine tank for known clean frags. Consider any frags and colonies that you can save 'bonus'.

These pests were my most frustrating experience in reefing for me. I lost huge colonies 9"+ across. :(

The one good news is that montis grow fast, so that once you're clean, you can rebuild relatively quickly.
 
Hi !

I think the pest is gone but so are most of the montis; I did not want to take a chance so myself nuked some large caps and digis
I'm keeping a watchful eye on the remaining frags for any hatching eggs I might have missed.
As far as a quarantine tank, I'm in the works to set one at my brother's place but new building owners are a PITA, the only place I could is the basement but there's a lot, A LOT of dust that generates there.
I normally dip but was unaware of the toughness of nudis this kind.
For my little upgrade I will get everything into a temporary tank then little by little add them back to the tank.
You are right Jason by saying it's frustrating but is one of the challenges in the hobby; is nature just making it more challenging. I might take your word on that Potasium Permag. Jason, thanks.
 
sorry to hear about your nudis, they really suck.

i helped jason with his infestation of nudi's... it was rough and super time consuming. like jason said we tried everything ... for weeks/months we tried dipping, fragging, manually sucking up the nudis, the waterpik, tons of wrasses, quarantining ones we thought were nudi free (they are sneaky little monsters so we ended up with 2 different quarantine tanks), basting was a bad idea we learned because it just spread the nudis and after all that we only saved 3 tiny monti frags.

in the end (at least for me) it really wasn't worth all the headache... thank goodness for DBTC and the frag swap that's how we slowly repopulated our (Jason's) tank. We still keep a watchful eye out.. thankfully in jason's main display tank there are none...

good luck!
 
Xcaret, will you be at the meeting this Saturday? I can bring some Potassium Perm. if you'd like. The smallest amount I could purchase would last me more than a lifetime.
 
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