Return of the Monti Eating Nudi

I committed a cardinal reef sin in my eyes......when the tank was first put back up the first coral I purchased was a monti. I had not set up the quarentine tank and did not have any type of dip. We looked at the coral and assumed it was ok and placed it in the DT. Started noticing that the base was turning white on the coral and thought it was due to the heater fire. Well over the past week (4 months later) the whiteness kept getting worse. Thought it was STN so took it out to frag and low and behold......infestation of the BIGGEST MEN I have ever seen! (Had an outbreak many years ago) On this one piece there was at least 15 visible MEN. That was the only monti that was in the tank, so I decided to just toss the piece out as I know the cycle of eggs and how it is hopeless to treat these pests

Unfortunately this means this tank must be monti free for the next 4-6 months (monti are my most favorite coral piece) and I have a large shipment of monti coming in from Wet Thumb Frags. I have a nano set up and ready for this shipment but this stinks! I have preached and preached on this site about MEN and yet I ignored it and now I am paying for it.

If my camera was charged I would take a picture of the MEN as they are clearly visible however the battery is dead. i am going to charge the camera and keep the bowl so that maybe I can shoot them in the morning!

 

Sorry to hear

 

Darn it!!!!!!

You really need to catch a break in the SW department. Seems like I have seen a rash of AEFW and MEN lately.

 

yeah it has been a rough several months in terms of our tanks! I am very fortunate that it happened this week and not next when we get our shipment. We only had teh one monti in there and the shipment is containing pokerstar, reverse sunset, spongoids, some monti digatata and some plating montis.

Like I said I have a tank in the bedroom that is ready for the shipment but it is not going to be big enough to keep all those pieces for a long time. So we are in the process of setting up YET another tank for the long term storage of the montis so that the other tank can still just be a QT tank.

 

well I contacted the store that I got the monti from to let them know they have MEN (as this store deals with more exotic corals then many of the other LFS in my area). I really have to say I respect the response I got from them. I sent a private email letting them know and instead of lying to me or saying....you dont know you got it from my store, the owner was very apologetic and said they have found some MEN in their system. It is their policy to dip all the corals when they arrive and dip every two weeks (dip does nothing with the eggs). While I am not happy about the situation, I do appreciate them being honest with me. I also take responsibilty for infecting my tank....I know better then to not qt montis. They are giving me credit when I come back (I did not ask for it....)

We did go and buy another tank today, a 29g nano MH tank to help store the new corals.

 

bummer!

After the first time I dipped a plating monti and saw several creatures I did not recognize come off, I'm never again adding stuff without dipping. I know I should also qt, but how can you possibly do everything you're supposed to and enjoy your brand new, shiny out of the box, coral?

I'm sorry to hear you're going through this shackmel. Cheer up! Things will get better!

 

That sucks man, I once bought a frag locally, and saw a nudi between the frag and disc. I normally remove any frag disc, and glue to new plugs/discs. I took that coral, and dropped it into a small QT after dropping it into a solution of tank water and Potassium Permanganate. It doesn't take much, a few crystals, and it turns the water purple. Anyway, I dipped the frag in the solution for maybe 45 minutes- an hour, and when it came out, it was browned out.

a month later the frag was colored up, and no MEN. PP kills/melts the egss.