Zoa Nudis - Phase One

cameron

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Thought I would share what I have found so far.

What Works
Salifert Flatworm Exit does work on adults using 1 drop for every 128oz or basically 1 drop every gallon of your tank. I haven't had the courage to dose the tank fully as flatworms and nudis give off toxic substances in the tank and I have far more to loose than gain by a full tank dose at this time. If you use the recommened dosage (4 drops every 5 gallons) in tests nudis die as well, but I have seen a couple get slow and take quite a while to die off leading me to believe they could survive at that dosage. Using my dosing none survive and they die very quickly usually within a minute.

Pro Coral Cure works just as well on the hatched nudis. They seem to die off in about 5 minutes. I would think a 15 or 20 minute dip will do the trick.

Furan2 does not work against these nor is it designed to work against these. However, it is a valid treatment (at least for many no scientiffic proof however) for zoa pox and I recommend dipping with this substance as well.

Hyper Salinity works as well and first deaths occur after about 20 minutes. Problem with the treatment is it will likely kill or harm incoming zoas and other corals.

QT... no suprise here waiting 4-6 weeks before moving any living thing into the main tank can save you hassle down the road. QT and good obeservation is still probably the safest form of pest control in general.

Capture and Removal: This technique will keep your zoas alive indefinitely and done religiously will likely cull the population until they are all dead. I have read numerous threads and have at least two people who ridded themselves of these annoying critters using this method. More details on this below.


Capture and Removal
The easiest capture technique is to use the following: Handheld Blacklight, Tweezers, Latex or Nitrile Gloves
<ol>
<li>Wait for the lights to go out.</li>
<li>Kill the flow in the main tank.</li>
<li>Turn on the black light.</li>
<li>With glove on gently touch any open zoas in the area you are searching. This will cause them to retract.</li>
<li>Now with one hand shine the black light over the zoas and with the other look for glowing critters</li>
<li>When you find one, tweeze and remove.</li>
</ol>
Eggs
The life span of the eggs seems to be about 2-3 weeks and to my knowledge no known treatment will kill them. I would suggest performing QT or dipping zoas regularly for at least 4 weeks. The eggs will in almost every case be attached on or near a zoa colony but they will deposit eggs on the rocks near zoas so those can be considered "infected" as well.


Additional Benefits
I have found doing research that performing a dip of Furan2, Pro Coral and Flatworm Exit will likely nuke pretty much any annoying critter you don't want in your tank short of egg stages. Also, using a Flatworm Exit and Furan2 bath for Fish Only looks to be a good precautionary treatment as well.

Well that is all I have to report for now. Questions, Comments, Concerns?
 
Cameron- did you hypo salinity? I have never heard of anyone using hyper salinity as a treatment.

How about natural control? I wonder in any arthropods would would, especially ones that could be kept in large numbers- ie- Lysmata sp.
 
I have plenty of extras so I pull them off into a small tub for experimentation. I did hypo just for fun. Not a valid treatment as it will likely kill the host as well as the nudis.

Natural is a BIG if and I can't confirm. There are reports of a couple of wrasses that hunt these but several threads have posted that the wrasse species most likely to feed on zoa nudis simply ignores them. I think you can get lucky with one fish and not another. Probably works if you get a good one, but sucks if you don't. Also the wrasse that eats nudis has been reported to pick at the zoas as well.

I have five skunk cleaners and on blood. None of them touch them. Even when I drop one right in front of them. I have no peppermints as they would be fish food in my tank.
 
Did you check out that link I pm'd you? Borneman found KMnO4 will kill nudibranchs and their eggs and not affect zoas.

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2007-09/eb/index.php">http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2007-09/eb/index.php</a>

"There are also nudibranchs and sundial snails (Heliacus spp.) that prey on zoanthids and, while the effectiveness of the treatment on zoanthid nudibranchs and sundials has not been tested, apparently zoanthids tolerate the potassium permanganate treatment."
 
Didn't try it as it will kill all sorts of stuff... here is an exerpt:

Even this small amount of treated water had surprising effects within a period of about 10 hours at the low concentration of the accidental treatment tank. He reported that all the fish died rapidly. Xenia</em> and Anthelia</em> &#8220;melted&#8221; and died rapidly. Pocillopora</em> damicornis</em> and Seriatopora</em> hystrix</em> sloughed their tissue. In both the treatment and accidental treatment tanks, errant polychaetes died, but small &#8220;feather worm&#8221; polychaetes survived. Stomatella</em> snails, a largely unprotected species, survived. Larger and smaller species of Trochus</em> survived, although the larger species were clearly stressed when initially exposed in the treatment tank. Perhaps their operculums effectively kept out the KMnO<span style="font-size: 12px;">4 treated water. A Sarcophyton</em> were clearly stressed, but Sinularia</em> were apparently unaffected. All zoanthids, Aiptasia</em> and Psammacora</em> were unaffected. Turbinaria</em> reacted acutely to the first exposure, but then recovered fully as though unaffected. All pest aeolid nudibranchs had disintegrated and all egg masses had vanished. </span>


<span style="font-size: 12px;">Probably work the same but the Flatworm Exit works as well sans eggs and is highly targetted. Didn't bother my chromis or xenia at all.</span>

There are also nudibranchs and sundial snails (Heliacus</em> spp.) that prey on zoanthids and, while the effectiveness of the treatment on zoanthid nudibranchs and sundials has not been tested, apparently zoanthids tolerate the potassium permanganate treatment. Other coral species clearly are sensitive and have high mortality when exposed to this chemical, so it is not a treatment for all corals.


I may try it as a dip, but given how different species of zoas react differently to various treatments I wouldn't be suprised to see some species die off using this treatment.
 
I don't think it was advocating a system wide treatment with it. I never would. I could prove great as a dip though, as it kills the organism and the eggs.

You can give it a whirl as a !$% it last chance solution. If your colonies are large enough, spare a polyp or two from each to try at the same time in dip you'd attempt. This way, you can rule out if you'll have any that will be affected.
 
I don't think there is any reason to try anything this drastic. Dipping frequently over a series of weeks with safer compounds, tank wide Flatworm Exit (which has been done with some success) multiple times over several weeks or simply going at it with tweezers seems to work fairly well without really harming the zoas.

This is for zoa eating nudis only. Monti eating nudis are likely an entirely different conversation.
 
I would think that a toxin strong enough to kill fish at a low dose would certainly kill any nudibranch with ease.

Definitly continue your route if you're seeing success.
 
KMnO4 will work on oxidizing any organic matter, That includes bacteria, nudi, flatworm, coral and yourself.... put some on your fingers and watch it turn brown. Eventhough I used to use it routinly on freshwater fish for QT, I would only suggest it for treatment as last resort, the time delay between cure and death is very short... It doesn't discriminate and will oxidize anything that it comes in contact.
That being said, Cameron, if you want to test a treatment on KMnO4, I can lend you some, but always have hydrogen peroxide on hand before attempting KMnO4 treatment in case you want to neutralize it.
 
I would think that a toxin strong enough to kill fish at a low dose would certainly kill any nudibranch with ease.
Depends on the toxin. Nudis are actually fairly toxic especially since they feed on a fairly toxic substance with zoas to begin with. Being a worm though they are very suseptable to a variety of treatments. Tricky part is ridding them from a tank without killing everything else.

I can lend you some, but always have hydrogen peroxide on hand before attempting KMnO4 treatment in case you want to neutralize it.
Nah... that stuff just sounds too rough. Probably have as much luck with a quick kalkwasser dip. Seems the theory is pretty similar. Kill the weaker organism before killing the host.
 
Cameron - Great write up. I was wondering about velvet nudibrachs. I have heard reports that they will eat flatworms as part of their diet. I wonder if being a larger predator they would also munch on the smaller nudibranchs? Canniballistic tendencies?
 
Possible. Zoa eating nudis are likely very poisonous possibly even to a nudi that eats somewhat poisonous flatworms. Quite literally in this case zoa nudis are what they eat simply meaning toxic as all hell.

Wouldn't mind running a test. Maybe I can get one ordered and see what it can do.
 
sammy33;86029 wrote: Cameron - Great write up. I was wondering about velvet nudibrachs. I have heard reports that they will eat flatworms as part of their diet. I wonder if being a larger predator they would also munch on the smaller nudibranchs? Canniballistic tendencies?

Then you can add a trigger to eat the velvet nudibranch, then a grouper to eat the tripper, then a cat for the grouper, then a dog for the cat, the a horse to eat the dog, the a lion to eat the horse, and then a T-Rex to eat the lion, and then a meteorite to kill the dinosaurs. I never liked those dinosaurs anyway. They have worse table manners than me. Let me know before you destroy the Earth, that's where I keep all my stuff.
 
DannyBradley;86091 wrote: Then you can add a trigger to eat the velvet nudibranch, then a grouper to eat the tripper, then a cat for the grouper, then a dog for the cat, the a horse to eat the dog, the a lion to eat the horse, and then a T-Rex to eat the lion, and then a meteorite to kill the dinosaurs. I never liked those dinosaurs anyway. They have worse table manners than me. Let me know before you destroy the Earth, that's where I keep all my stuff.

Horses don't eat dogs....
 
I beg to differ....although it is hard to get a horse to eat a dog once they have the taste its all down hill from there!
 
Cameron;85990 wrote: I have plenty of extras so I pull them off into a small tub for experimentation. I did hypo just for fun. Not a valid treatment as it will likely kill the host as well as the nudis.

Natural is a BIG if and I can't confirm. There are reports of a couple of wrasses that hunt these but several threads have posted that the wrasse species most likely to feed on zoa nudis simply ignores them. I think you can get lucky with one fish and not another. Probably works if you get a good one, but sucks if you don't. Also the wrasse that eats nudis has been reported to pick at the zoas as well.

I have five skunk cleaners and on blood. None of them touch them. Even when I drop one right in front of them. I have no peppermints as they would be fish food in my tank.

What would eat the peppermints, but not the skunks or blood?

I agree about the potassium permanganate. It is effective, but is harsh. We used to use it at the koi farm I worked at, it would kill pretty indiscrinminately. It'll also stain everything it touches purple!
 
My hawkfish will devour peps and I have seen him take runs at my cleaners. I buy VERY large cleaners usually 2"+ and they tend to last a while.
 
hmmm. makes sense. I havent ever seen large pepps.

If thinking of experimental, one crab I have thought is an arrow crab. But I am just spitballing.
 
I think Furan2 is safe with corals of all types and can't think of any reason why it wouldn't be. I have only tested zoas and a couple of acro frags I have so I can't say that as a fact though. Furan2 is not listed as reef safe and as a medication designed to fight bacterial and fungial infections I would not dose it in my main tank as it could attack the good bacteria on your live rocks.
 
I finally beat the little suckers (I think). I used one full bottle of Salifert Exit (about 2-3 times the recommended dosage) each week for six weeks and added one Green Wrasse and one Yellow Wrasse. I have not seen a nudi in almost 2 months and none of my zoas have little egg casings on them.

I think running full treatments while the nudis were hatching is the trick. At any rate, Salifert Exit is now included in all my dips.
 
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