Zoa Bugs
 

Looks like I got some zoa bugs. Ugh, a few colonies have been closed up for a few days so decided to blast them with the turkey baster. Seen lots of about 3-5mm bugs coming out. Looks like little nudibranches (no idea on that spelling haha). One has little glowing green things on its back. At first I though I was blasting away zoas but then I realized they were all still there.

Any ideas?

I had a few nudis.. pain in the necks munched down half of my green zoos. you can get them off but watch for eggs! some one a little more experienced might explain it better but I did a iodine dip and havent seen any since so my fingers are crossed!

You should dip those colonies in 1/3 peroxyde 3% and 2/3 tank water for a few miniutes. Let it fizz and they will all come off dead.

Do that to all your colonies that are affected.

Nudibranches that are eating zoanthids are usualy white, so it's hard to tell without a pic what it is.

Weekly dips in any of the store bought dips for three ish weeks should ensure that you get any hatchers

Funny, have never seen white ones. Only these.
http://i589.photobucket.com/albums/s...0/IMG_3516.jpg

Dipps are good, but not 100%. A Yellow and a halicouris wrasses are what saved our zoo's. Been over a year now and no nudi's.

I love my yellow wrasse, he even takes out those zoa snails (sundial)

Yeah awesome sight. Only ever got to see our halicoris take down a sundial once. What voracious feeder they are.

You're right, I was mixing them up with monti eating nudi. They are more brownish although I never had any so never saw one in person.

I guess the dip does not kill the eggs. Fish are usualy a hit or miss kind of thing. For exemple, my mandarins never ate any flatworms even though some people report theirs were eating flatworms. My copperband never eat any aiptasia at all..not even the smaller ones. So buying a fish just for the purpose of eating something might not be best as it might not touch the thing at all.

I had a yellow wrasse and also a checkerboard and none ate the snail or worms. They did not do a good job on amphipods either because they were burried in the sand at night while the amphipods were out munching on zoanthids.

This is exactly what they are. Picked up a yellow wrasse today. You can see which colony they are attaching because it all closes up even if there is just one in there. So I go in with the turkey baser and suck it out of there. Removed about 30 so far.

What exactly are those and how big are they?

nudibranches :) they eat zoanthids (little pests) They are about the size of a... hmm whats a good reference.. they're small lol really small

Well found this specimen many years ago, it was 3/8" . The only reason i found him was, i started using an led light to look through the tank at night. The things i saw, then that. It glowed, then if found more. Then i got my wrasses and haven't looked back. Trials and tribulation's of this hobby.

Not sure what they are called. Some kind of sea slug. The biggest one I pulled out so far was about 8mm long.

They are nudibranches. Bad little buggers.

heres a link to some types of nudis and slugs there are, thousdands of pics on this site with over 250 genus:):)


http://www.nudipixel.net/genus/

Still have these dam bugs. I had been picking them out with a turkey baster for weeks and pretty much got them all only for the population to come right back when all the eggs hatched.

Is a Yellow Wrasse the best way to get rid of these?

I was thinking of dipping everything (moving to a new tank soon) what should I dip them in?

Is there anything that will kill the eggs?

My melanarus destroyed my monti-eating nudis. That fish hunts non-stop all day such a cool addition. Highly recommend one although I'm not sure if they eat all types.

If you have moonlights this wrasse will work even better. Lights dim, all your corals retract and many of these bad critters come out. My melanarus doesn't go to sleep until ALL lights are out so in the pale light he can get all the stuff hiding during the day.

So I got a yellow wrasse and litterely 5 days later they are all gone and zoas recovered. I never even seen the wrasse eat anything haha. Maybe scared them off? Or perhaps the are on a low cycle or something while more hatch. However looking good so far :)

the wrasse should take care of the problem! :) I had a few on my zoo' about 2 months or more ago, and I got one off manually, and the I dipped, luckily I have a small tank so I dipped all my rocks lol, some how I still have a few stometellas that survived or came in on coral

Well these came back today with avengance. Hundreds of them eating my Zoas again. :cry: *commence crying*

I cant keep a wrasse in my tank because of my stupid Dottyback (I wanna punch that fish in the face haha).

Sounds like it is time for a tank transfer and dip the hell out of everything to get rid of the little ba$t@rd$.

What should I dip them in molten lava?

I would think a FW dip will release them for the zoas.......

Problem is I hear that will not get rid of the eggs so they just come back in about 3 weeks. I think the wrasse is the only long term solution but until they are in the bigger tank I cant keep one.

If you want to and can catch the dotty you can toss it in my office tank until you get the big tank going.

Thanks for the offer but there is no way I could catch it.

How hard where these to find? I've got one zoa colony that just won't open any more, the one directly beside it is fine, and the same type of zoa's on the other side of the tank are open and happy. Both have about the same flow/light, so it just doesn't make sense to me.

Well its easier after dark however if you look closely you can see nudis around 1-3 mm in length on top of the zoa. They take on the same color as the zoa so its hard but if you look closely you can see there is a problem. Will try to get a picture tonight.

Lugol's iodine in a solution with tank water should kill em. Worked for me. The eggs may not all die off so you have to keep an eye out. Try to qt the zoas in a container and look for eggs. Do a quick google search for nudi zoa eggs if you need a reference pic. Dip then remove manually. Rinse and repeat.

API Melefix works to, but doesn't work on the eggs. But it is easy to find the egg rings, and remove with a scalpel. Then you are right the wrasses are your long term solution.