Zoa Eating Spiders

[Harrison]

Hi everyone,

A couple of weeks ago I noticed a couple of my Zoa colonies were starting to look stressed a couple days later and it was obvious I was losing polyps. After another colony started to close up I decided to remove all 3 and give them a fresh water dip and give a good looking over under a magnifying glass.

About 20 minutes later I had removed approximately 30 Zoa eating spiders (never new they existed till I looked in the gallery. I then spent the next 2 hours dipping and examining the rest of Zoas and removed a small number more of the spiders.

All my Zoas were then sumped with the intention of dipping again over the next couple of weeks to get any stragglers and eggs when they hatch.

The questions I have are how frequently can I dip my Zoas? Some haven’t reacted well probably down to that and the change of environment

And does anyone know the life cycle of these spiders? Want to make sure there is no chance of them returning after I reintroduce all my colonies.

Cheers

Matthew

 

[MarvinsReef]

Hi everyone,

A couple of weeks ago I noticed a couple of my Zoa colonies were starting to look stressed a couple days later and it was obvious I was losing polyps. After another colony started to close up I decided to remove all 3 and give them a fresh water dip and give a good looking over under a magnifying glass.

About 20 minutes later I had removed approximately 30 Zoa eating spiders (never new they existed till I looked in the gallery. I then spent the next 2 hours dipping and examining the rest of Zoas and removed a small number more of the spiders.

All my Zoas were then sumped with the intention of dipping again over the next couple of weeks to get any stragglers and eggs when they hatch.

The questions I have are how frequently can I dip my Zoas? Some haven’t reacted well probably down to that and the change of environment

And does anyone know the life cycle of these spiders? Want to make sure there is no chance of them returning after I reintroduce all my colonies.

Cheers

Matthew

Hi Matthew.. welcome to club-zoa..

I would recommend dipping your zoas every 3-4 days to give them time to recuperate from the previous dip.. and would do it for 2-3 weeks depending on if you get anymore spiders from your dips..

good luck..

Marvin

 

[Zeppelin]

Yep. Once a week or so is good until you dont see anymore. Bad thing about the 'spiders' is that they live INSIDE the closed polyps, and can be hard to get rid of.

Good luck, and Welcome.

 

[kpax]

Sorry to hear about the spiders. I know have to look them up so Ican learn more about them! You learn something everyday in this!

 

[kpax]

Now those look nasty!

 

[Harrison]

Thanks for the advice guys going to dip once a week. Only going to do a short dip and see what the effect is.

Coralnutz those are the fellas if its only those i've been infected by they are very serious predators.

Cheers

Matthew