Nutibranks

[Chamberflyer]

Hi List,

I've recently have had an outbreak of nutibanks in my 20 gal frag tank.

They are fleshy pink, about 1/4 in long with gills down the length of the back.

I've been using a turkey baster to remove them but I need a fix for this

problem. I think they came in on a zo frag, but I'm not sure.


Thanks for the help

 

[OrionGirl]

Have you tried id'ing them? Most nudibranchs are obligate feeders, meaning they will only eat a specific food item. These sound like they may target that zoo--if you can remove it to a hospital tank, and manually remove them, any remaining in the tank will starve to death, and the picking in a quarantine should be continued until you don't see them for at least 10 days before returning it to the main setup.

 

[Chamberflyer]

Thanks for the help. I've been looking but have not found any pictures that look like them. I wish I had a qt that was large enough for all my zo frags, but my other tanks are smaller ( one 3gal and two 12gal) and also have a nice collection of zos. The baster seems to be reducing the number of larger ones. Knowing that nutibranchs are sensitive to their environment, I tried reducing the spec grav to 1.019 to see if this will help. Any other suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[OrionGirl]

I'd worry that anything that will kill the nudi's will also kill the zoos or othr coral. a FW dip--only 30 seconds or so, or a longer one at around 1.012 (1-2 minutes) might be better--less impact on the corals, anyway.

There are some crabs that eat nudis, to, but not many. A reef-safe fluke treatment might work as well--at least they have similar morphology.

 

[Chamberflyer]

Thanks OrionGirl,

I think I'll try the low spec grav dip, then observe before going to the straight freshwater.