Zoa eating nudi's

[Pat02026]

So a few zoa colonies hadn't looked so hot the past few weeks. I have been away on the weekends the past few months and my tank has suffered from recieving minimal maintnence. I spent a few hours last sunday cleaning and doing a pair of 20% water changes and have been plucking these little guys out at a rate of about two per day for the past week. I havent seen any in the past 24 hours so I started with a recommended dose of flatworm exit, hopefully eradicating whatever may be left unseen in the system. I will follow up weekly with two more treatments to be sure to kill off any hatching eggs.

Anybody else dealing with these pesky evil little things? They must have been here for quite some time. its been well over two months since introducing any new corals, and only been about 3 weeks since I first started noticing a decline in the zoa's health. hopefully the Flatworm exit does the trick.

 

[JohnK]

No personal exp, but have you already seen this thread? http://www.bostonreefers.org/forums...nt-protocol-Anyone-got-a-good-link&highlight=

Have you aquired any corals/zoas from a LFS in the metrowest area in the past year or so? I know a certain LFS in that area had a zoa eating nudi problem not too long ago....

 

[Ruge13]

I had them
http://www.bostonreefers.org/forums/showthread.php?118281-Guilty-until-proven-Innocent-hard-times-for-a-Nudi&highlight=Zoa+eating+nudi

I had a similar experience. Did not introduce a coral for a month or 2 and then one day there was Steve. Started by seeing 1, then 2, then 3-4 per week, usually all out on the same night. I'd see nothing for several days then one night I would spot 4 of them. Most I ever pulled was 6 in one night. Easy to spot once you know what to look for. Then one day it stopped. Maybe 3-4 months ago. I have not seen one since. I did nothing more than pluck them. No medication. I did eventually find a Yellow Corris wrase that I added about a month ago "just because" even though I had not seen any in a while. He must have known they were gone and his services were not needed, because 2 days after putting him in he buried in the sand one night never to be seen again

I've been clean now for several months and my zoas look fine. Good luck with them. They never really did any damage in my tank, just slowed or stopped things from growing and spreading. Actually did me a favor by slowing some of my more invasive faster growing zoos from crowding the slow growers. Seemed like they went after the new growth so they seemed to stay with the faster growers. I have maybe a dozen different zoos/palys and they seemed to prefer anything orange over all others.

 

[Pat02026]

Thanks guys. I have been pulling them off every time I see them. Good news is that its been since saturday that I have seen any more; I picked out two within an hour of the initial flatworm exit dose, and have not seen any since. Also since then all of my zoas have opened back up, and look like they are going to pull through. I'll keep my fingers crossed, and hit the system with a double dose of FE this coming saturday to hopefully knock out any potentially hatching nudi's and keep a close eye for the next few weeks. I think I caught them early enough to prevent a large population of them, as well I only have 5 zoa colonies, of which none are larger than 2-3" square so theres not much place for them to hide!

 

[Ruge13]

FE can be harmful to systems as it nukes other beneficial organisms. IMHO, I would not use more than the recommended dose. I'm also not sure that it will help with Nudi's but you may want to confirm that. That is the reason I never used it in my system and chose to accept them and pluck them out.

If you only have a few colonies you can also pull them out and dip them. This is far less invasive to your system and was suggested when I posted about it. Exposure to fresh water or something like Coral RX will not harm your Zoos for short periods of time. I chose not to do this because I have them mixed with SPS.

 

[Pat02026]

Still have yet to see another one appear, I have also been checking a few hours after lights out with a flash light and no signs; all the affected colonies look happy again and all except one are opening almost as they were before this happend. I am going to hold off on a second dose for now.