Brutal Sunday

[tidal_waters]

Great forum here and was hoping to get some help, as I'm still pretty new to the hobby.

I was out camping for the weekend and came home to my tank missing a clown, presumably dead and eaten by crabs, and the second blow was I was picking out what I now know is zoa eating nudibranch,s. I pulled about 8 out so far off the polyps.

So now the two questions. With the death of the clown I noticed my nitrates spiked and I changed about 20 percent of my water. Is this going to be enough, or should I whip up another water change tonight.

Now onto the nudis, I know I have a problem on my hands from what I read but I was hoping to get some information or past experiences from some of you that may have had this problem in the past and what steps I should take next to get rid of these guys.

Thanks in advance!!

[SeaHorse_Fanatic]

I would get some more water ready for additional water changes, but test again before you do it.

For nudibranches and flatworms, I've tried freshwater dips (same temp.) and watched them float off. I dip the rocks with the pests on them and they reacted by letting go of the rock while in the fw and I just quickly swished the rock back and forth. Don't know if this technique will work for you, but it did for me. I dechlorinated the fw dipping water first and made sure temp was similar to the tank water. A few seconds in fw should not adversely affect the live rock or zoas.

Anthony

[4lti7ude]

Zoa eating Nudies are my biggest fear for my reef right now.
Lougals dip those things, but anything without a spine will die.

May I ask where you picked up these Zoas from?

[tidal_waters]

Unfortunately I couldn't tell you where I got them from as I picked up many from different suppliers. However, even if I knew which colony they came from I wouldn't feel comfortable posting a name on a thread such as this. I could avoided all this by dipping prior to introducing these to my tank. Lesson learned.

[tidal_waters]

I would get some more water ready for additional water changes, but test again before you do it.

For nudibranches and flatworms, I've tried freshwater dips (same temp.) and watched them float off. I dip the rocks with the pests on them and they reacted by letting go of the rock while in the fw and I just quickly swished the rock back and forth. Don't know if this technique will work for you, but it did for me. I dechlorinated the fw dipping water first and made sure temp was similar to the tank water. A few seconds in fw should not adversely affect the live rock or zoas.

Anthony

I may try this when I get home today. Good news is most of my colonies are on two rocks, bad news is there are a few other things on the one rock that may not like the bath.

I have two smaller gbta's on one side of said rock as well as a xenia(sp). Would these be affected? Need be I can attempt to remove the anemones but I never tried relocating a xenia?

[cuz]

nudi's suck!! I'm fighting them off right now, I removed all zoa's/ paly's from my display, dipped them in revive and went thru each and every polyp looking for eggs. Revive wipes out the nudi's but nothing i've found touches the eggs. Be very tedious with inspecting each piece over and over, its hard to spot all the eggs.
I also added a 6line wrasse to the dt hoping he'd pick away at them, Its been 3 weeks now and everything looks happy but nothings going back into the display till i know theres no chance of eggs that where on rocks or anywhere have had a chance to hatch and starve out.
sucks but i'm staying determined.

Seeing your from calgary I call guess where you got the without asking as I'm 99% sure mine came from the same place!! Either way, lessoned learned!! Always dip new pieces from anyone!!!

[kien]

I had an infestation a few months back. I started by sucking them up one by one with a turkey baster each time I saw one on the zoos. They are much easier to spot at night when the lights are out as you can shine an LED flashlight onto them and they will fluoresce (since they take on the zoozanthellae of the zoa that they consume). Anyway, that made a dent in their numbers but I would still see the odd one now and again. I read a list of wrasses that will hunt them and ended up getting a leopard wrasse (they look cool to boot). Since putting the wrasse in I have not seen a single nudibranch. There are other wrasses that will possibly hunt them like the canary wrasse, six line wrasse, green wrasse, melanarus wrasse, etc.

[tidal_waters]

I was thinking about getting a wrasse, however another question popped into my head. I've heard that some wrasses are aggressive towards other like body fishes and I have a blue assessor that had that same torpedo like shape. I would hate to add something that would constantly bully the assessor around.

[kien]

I think in general most of the reef safe wrasses are pretty peaceful, like the fairy wrasses, canary wrasse, melanarus wrasse, leopard wrasse. There are exceptions though, like the reef safe 6 line wrasse can be pretty aggressive. Most if not all of the non-reef safe wrasse are the ones to watch out for, they are quite territorial and aggressive. Lunare, Banana, Pink Face/five stripe, sunset, Red Coris, etc.

I can only speak from personal experience here as I have a Solar Fairy wrasse, Leopard Wrasse, Canary Wrasse and Melanarus wrasse that all get along and show no signs of aggression towards any fish.

[hockey nut]

I have a blue assessor and a six line with no probs.

Just a tip. When I buy my zoas frags etc I add a few drops of Flatworm Exit to the bag the zoas are in. mix it up and let stand for 10-15 minutes and any nudi,flatworms,fire worms,small bugs ,snails ....ok basically anything is done for, but without any effect to the zoas at all. Give it a rinse with some aquarium water and your done. As for eggs I find using a soft tooth brush takes the egg sacks off the zoa in one swoop of the brush.

I have switched to this method of nudi removal as I have lost too many colonies to freshwater dipping. It works well but I find it stresses the zoas out in my experience anyway. If you are going to fresh water dip make sure you buffer the water as well.

hth

[tidal_waters]

Thanks for all the replies people, I'll keep the thread updated with my progress with my little battle!