Micro Nudibranch?

[joelespinoza]

Can anyone identify this little guy? He looks like a nudibranch but is about the size of a grain of rice. I have seen at least 3 at once in my tank, so I assume I probably have a LOT more than that. The black arrow is the main quandry. All of them I have seen are the same size, and they have not grown in the last month or so since I saw the first one.

Offhand anyone know what the red arrow is? I assume its just a harmless worm of some kind.

http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b124/JoelEspinoza/PICT0214.jpg

[Ace25]

Almost all nudibranchs end up being bad in an aquarium setting. The one in your picture looks particularly nasty, seen plenty that looked just like that and were zoanthid eating nudis. The one in the picture is usually as big as they get.

Ya, red arrow looks like a harmless worm/feather duster.

[joelespinoza]

Almost all nudibranchs end up being bad in an aquarium setting. The one in your picture looks particularly nasty, seen plenty that looked just like that and were zoanthid eating nudis. The one in the picture is usually as big as they get.

Ya, red arrow looks like a harmless worm/feather duster.

I have yet to see any around my zoanthids or xenias, however my zoanthids have not ever really thrived since I put them in this tank. I have been hoping my new light will help, however maybe something more sinister is at play. Any thoughts on how to get rid of the little guys?

[Ace25]

When I worked at a LFS I would have to pull out zoa frags and dip them in revive to get the nudibranchs off. Honestly, I have no idea how to rid them 100% INSIDE a tank. Normal flatworms have "flatworm exit" that will get rid of those pests, and red bugs have "interceptor", both I have used with great success in a coral tank, but I don't know of any methods that is 100% effective against nudibranchs, just lots of "band aids" like finding small wrasses that may eat them, like a 6 line wrasse, but that is no way guaranteed it will work. Only method I use for "in tank" is a pair of tweezers and grab them as I see them, but the bad part is they lay lots of eggs so that isn't a solution to the problem, just a little something that can help. IF they are zoanthid eating nudibranchs they become very hard to see because when they eat zoas, they take the color from the zoas and incorporate the color into their bodies so the nudibranchs become camouflaged in with the zoanthids.

[joelespinoza]

I have read a couple places now that flatworm exit will kill nudibranchs, although apparently not their eggs.

http://www.practicalcoralfarming.com/zoonudis.html

http://www.bluezooaquatics.com/resources.asp?show=15

[joelespinoza]

You were absolutely right, they were clearly eating my zoanthids. Thanks a ton for the heads up.

About 95% of my zoanthids are on a single rock, and they have some little white spots on them that I assume are the nudibranch eggs.... Is there something you recomend dipping them in to get rid of them? I dont really have to treat the whole tank, although I do plan to treat it with Flatworm Exit as soon as it comes in to kill all the adults not on that rock.

[Ace25]

I don't know of anything that kills the eggs either. Revive seems to be a better product than Flatworm Exit for killing the adults, but from doing a quick google search, I can't find anything that seems to kill the eggs. All I see is people saying to scrape the eggs off the coral/frags when dipping it into a seperate container with saltwater/revive for around 5 minutes, no more than 10 minutes. The best option I think is to take the zoanthids out of the tank, put them in something temporary for 7 days, dip on day 1 and day 7 (eggs hatch every 6 days). If you do that there is a good chance you will get most, if not all the nudibranchs on that particular rock/frag. Still leaves a big question mark though, did the nudi's lay eggs elsewhere inside the tank? Chances are, yes, but most of the time if they don't lay the eggs within zoanthid colonies, they lay them on the glass in spiral patterns and are very easy to siphon out. It sucks there is no "1 step process" like for other pests but it is certainly a pest that can be eradicated with just a little effort, unlike some other pests like AEFW, which I have seen many people have to completely tear their tanks down to eradicate.

[Floyd R Turbo]

Don't people buy nudibranches to eat aptasia? Are those a different kind? Berghia sounds familiar...

[joelespinoza]

Nudibranchs eat different stuff and are apparently pretty specific in what they eat. These guys are trouble in that they like Zooanthids, but they also seem to like algae and stuff, so if I did not have Zooanthids they wouldnt be an issue for me.

[Garf]

Nudibranchs eat different stuff and are apparently pretty specific in what they eat. These guys are trouble in that they like Zooanthids, but they also seem to like algae and stuff, so if I did not have Zooanthids they wouldnt be an issue for me.

Dipping the food source I.e zoa colony in freshwater (same temp as the tank) for a few seconds will get them off. Then just watch for stragglers in the tank and suck them up with a turkey baster.

[Ace25]

Don't people buy nudibranches to eat aptasia? Are those a different kind? Berghia sounds familiar...
Yup, the only 2 "aquarium safe" nudibranchs are berghia (super tiny, smaller than a pencil eraser) or lettuce nudibranchs, but even though both are aquarium safe, I have never seen either of them do much of anything in regards to helping out a tank due to their size and fragility. Lettuce nudibranchs eat hair algae but they have big fin type things on them making them not so good in tanks with a sufficient amount of flow and berghia are so small it would take dozens just to kill a few aiptasia, which is just way to costly when they cost about $10ea.

Freshwater dips work to release the adults from zoa colonies but again, does nothing for the eggs, which is why I recommend dipping, then placing in a temporary tank for a week and then dip again to make sure if there are any eggs, they hatch and you get them as well. Never dip a zoa colony for more than 10 minutes in FW (5-7 minutes is how long I dip them, usually around the 5 minute mark the most stubborn nudibranchs start releasing), also shake the coral frag/rock vigorously after a couple minutes in the FW dip to really shake everything off that you can.

[Garf]

If you go along the quarantine route, be sure to leave at least some of their favoured zoa's in your display. This will act as a magnet to any stray nudi's in your display and you can just keep freshwater dipping this (every few days), until your sure they are gone.

[joelespinoza]

Clearly I am going to have to get some coral revive or something. I did a freshwater dip on the Zoas, I used a 5 gallon bucket with tank temp RO water and about .5 tsp of kalk, which brought it to the right PH and let it sit for an hour. I then swished the Zoa rock around in the water for slightly less than a minute pretty hard. After this my mushroom coral seems to be dead, none of the tubeworms have come back out, and the zoas took 2 days before any of them opened back up... Even now more than 3 days later less than half of them are open.

So not sure what I did wrong... but clearly they were not ok with it.

[Ace25]

I think it is the Kalk used to dip them in that caused the problems, that is a huge no no from what I have been told numerous times. Usually that is instant death for a coral, you're lucky to have anything live after that. You want to use something like pH Up or just baking soda to raise pH, not kalkwasser. I have used baking soda in the past without issues for dipping zoas and fish and the zoas always open back up within 30 minutes.

[Garf]

By using R.O.,water you inadvertantly gave the rock a weak kalkwasser bath. i would use tap water because the hardness helps stabalise the ph when you add the kalk to increase ph. also i would not leave it so long. Start with maybe 20 or 30 seconds. As soon as you see things dropping off the rock, nudi,s worms, pods etc then you know its done its business.

[kerry]

I am not sure if its acceptable or not but here it goes. This is what I have done in the past when I get corals. My African cichlid tank is maintained to about 8.0/8.2pH by means of magnesium sulfate, sodium bicarbonate, and Kalk top off-maybe 1-2 Qts per week between weekly water changes of 75%. I have keep Africans this way for years. So I have always dipped my corals into the FW tank for about 30 seconds before I acclimate them. A few times I have forgot and dipped them after acclimation and this seems fine as well. This seems to have worked ok in the past for me, is it best to dip before or after acclimation?

[Ace25]

It is best to dip before acclimation because the corals are already peeved and closed up, which protects the coral. It doesn't matter to much though, other than the fact you really want to drip first to ensure nothing bad gets into your tank or even QT system if you can help it.

If it has worked for you, then it is acceptable. :) I would be a little concerned about "unknowns" coming from the FW tank, but I have no idea what would even be bad about the FW in order to look out for it. It is all about sharing experiences in order to give the OP the most information and options for him to chose from.

[kerry]

I figured it was best to dip first but sometimes I have forgot. I figured if the African tank is not experiencing anything bad that it should be OK, the pH is also the same so its not a shock in that aspect. Been doing this for the last couple years+ and have not had any flat worms or other in my SW tank nor anything go bad with the FW tank either.

[Garf]

Have things improved?

[joelespinoza]

Have things improved?

Yea, they are doing better, many of them died, but the rest look ok now. Almost the whole center section of the rock is gone, but I think the parasites are too.

Here is what it looks like now:
http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b124/JoelEspinoza/PICT0233Medium.jpg

This is what it looked like when I first got it (under T8 lighting and like 1.040 specific gravity)
http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b124/JoelEspinoza/PICT0149.jpg

Tank is still cloudy, but is clearling up slowly. I have everything organized now:
http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b124/JoelEspinoza/PICT0236Medium-1.jpg

[Garf]

Joelespinoza,

Looks like when you received the colony, it was already receding. I think you have saved it. Given the right conditions it should do well. With a good sized colony like this, I would break a few small bits off (with the rock preferably), and locate them in different areas of your tank. This will give a variety of conditions, some it will thrive in and others where it won't do as well.