>Wrasse control is part of the reason we have 4line wrasses in our sps tanks, hoping that if any come in on anything that they will eat them... but the problem is I'm betting that if the wrasse dies or is removed, the fw will come back.. I doubt they will totally kill off the entire population, and not everyone wants a wrasse.<
Good point. For someone just trying to control them in a tank this type of biological control should be fine. For someone attempting to eradicate them from some type of holding system/propagation system probably won't work. At the same time though, if the fish learn to target the eggs as well, I suppose eradication is possible? Also, many wrasses will learn to eat alternate foods. Could you have a Large number of wrasses in the system, feed them well with alternate foods, then every time you add an infected coral stop feeding for a few days?
FWIW, I figured as much on the nudi's, the ones I tried for bryopsis years ago were a bit of a disappointment, and I've heard the same about the ones that eat the C. retrogemma.
FWIW, I like the way this thread is going compared to the last one.
A question I asked over on RC....do they lay eggs on live tissue, or only on the base/dead tissue? Could you 'dremel' off all areas of dead base skeleton, and therefore leave no place for eggs to hid? Alternatively, could you dip the dead base sections in something? On the occasions when I've had some critter I didn't want on the base of a rock/coral I would dip (or spray) just that section with 70% ethanol, wait about 20 seconds, then rinse the ethanol away with a bit of tank water. The ethanol effectively instantly dehydrates and kills EVERYTHING it touches. I've done this (very carefully) even with Tridac clams that I've gotten from people that were riddled with bryopsis, bubble algae, and other things I didn't want.