Zoa Spiders, The battle begins.....

[pookstreet]

Well, here is my contribution to the zoa spider hunt. I was dipping and inspecting a new paly colony that I got last night and the sight of these things really creeped me out. They gave me the shudders when I plucked them out. Just thought I would take some pix to show everyone what they look like. Man, I am just hoping that the other colonies I got recently don't have the same things. I can't get a good close-up shot of these little boogers b/c my work digicam sucks. I'll try with my dslr at home this weekend. I took some pix next to a ruler for everyone's reference. I caught 5 and 2 of them were black and the other 3 were brown. Don't know why there is a color difference, perhaps different sex?

Get ready for the shivers......

 

[Shultz]

Well I can't say its been a fun 2 hours, here I am at nearly midnight after dipping all that were still alive.....

As a re-cap I am testing a theory its better to dip for Zoa Spiders after lights out, well as the picture below shows I still have a problem

I think including the ones that didn't make it into the pic there was 44 tonight So it continues, will a beat them or will I run out of polyps first?? Dumped 6 rocks tonight that had bit the dust.......

Apologies for the crappy pic I couldn't be bothered to set up the macro at this time of night...

Cheers Shelton.

 

[Azurel]

Holy crap thats a lot of spiders.......Man I don't know what to say to that but, my condolences on your expanding problem.....

 

[korndogg091]

all i can say is wow!!! that is nuts. I feel bad for you, i hope you keep fighting the good fight. good luck.

 

[Shultz]

If you look back over this thread you'll see this brings the number found upto around the 100 mark now

Looking at them this morning I must admit they look a bit better for the dip, so hopefully I'm beginning to tip the balance?

Cheers Shelton.

 

[Shultz]

Right since dipping all that are left in the QT friday I've not found anymore spiders after lights out.... The big test for me will be this coming friday when I dip them all again & see how many spiders I get this week as I know I've always gotten a lot more via dipping than searching.

I suspect I have had some eggs hatch as I notice I'm still losing polyps, though nowhere near on the scale I was... The most important question I would like answered now is how long the eggs take to hatch from being laid within the polyp?

Also it would be good to know how old these spiders have to be before they reach breeding age?

Will give another update on friday, poss saturday once I have dipped again.

Cheers Shelton.

 

[Brandon]

woohoo

sounds like good news

Hopefully you are over the top of the hill now

Best of luck
Brandon

 

[Azurel]

I have read it might have been on Wetwebmedia.com that spiders that are white in color are starving spiders and not getting enough to eat. They may have over populated and now be on the decline due to the reduced resources. I also think I have read from the same source that the eggs hatch within a weeks time frame....Not 100% sure that was the qoute though. I wonder how the zoanthids would do in a long period of a hypo-salinity bath like for days at a time? I know when they use that for quarintine fish it kills off any type of pest that are on the fish. This happens due to the fact that the pest cannot regulate the specific gravity of the fluids with the tissues and cells which cause them to burst thusly killing the pest infecting the fish. If the zoanthids could survive in that type of condition then that would also help kill off the spiders as they can't regulate the salinity in their cells either. Just a though to ponder...I hope you are the road to recovery my friend I know how painful these things are as you watch your beloved hobby seem to crumble in front of you. But keep up the good work and you will be rewarded for it.....That I am sure of.

 

[Shultz]

Thanks for your thoughts!

I think my problem was made worse as I thought it was something else, hence the spiders got a good hold within my tank The hypo theory sounds interesting, maybe something to test out in the future if things don't improve?

Friday will be the mark as a big drop in numbers is required to know that I'm on the right track....

Cheers Shelton.

 

[Voltekker]

ive seen a bunch of pics of the spiders spread accross different threads/forums. Id like to know what the polyps look like after being attacked by these things.

 

[revhtree]

Also do they attack just zoas or Palys too?

Now dont nudis just go for zoas?

 

[Azurel]

Well I waould assume that they would eat palys to see as how Palythoas are in the species of Zoanthus, or is a sub-species of Zoanthus. Samething with nudis.....I am not sure though if it is gene specific as to say only those polyps that are zoanthus and not Palythoa or protopalythoa.....

 

[Shultz]

Right its time for the friday night update for all you Zoa-holics out there

Just dipped what I have left, dumped 2 more rocks as the polyps left had gone so not worth keeping just to totally rot in the QT. Of course what you are reading for is to find out if/how many spiders I found.....

Well ok there is good & bad news as far as I'm concerned, I got 20 spiders this week so thats a good improvement on last weeks 44. The bad news is my largest rock of pinks has lost a fair chunk from it in dead poylps, I got 4 spiders off this rock alone! Continuing the bad news as such about 10 spiders were of a size I would call fully grown, I can't beleive these grow that quickly in a week, so it must mean they are inside either polyps or very lucky in a hole within the LR to survive the 3 dips so far?

I really hope next weeks dip will result in single figure finds, but again time will tell..... Most of the rocks left are between 2-10 polyps & some don't look overly healthy & I dunno how many more dips they will tolerate?

Cheers Shelton.

 

[Shultz]

For those following this I was pointed towards a Reefkeeping link as below, but I'll quote the last paragraph which doesn't bode to well for me or any other Zoanthid keeper....

http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2003-01/rs/index.php

Quote: "Sea spider predation or parasitism is a potential threat to all corals, soft corals, and sea anemones that are kept in aquaria. If an aquarium system gets infected, just how easy it is to control the pest species will really depend on the type of pycnogonid that is present. The large forms are typically slow, and readily apparent, and may be easily removed from aquaria. The small forms, on the other hand, may be quite difficult to see, as they may be as small, or smaller, than the polyps of small-mouthed corals. Additionally, they may live under the coral mucus layer, and this would further obscure them. They do not appear to be easily removed by "dips," poisons, or potential predators. Frankly, if they are found on corals in any tank, the best option would likely be to remove the coral from the tank, and simply dispose of it."

Cheers Shelton.

 

[Shultz]

Well firstly appologies for anybody mad enough waiting around lastnight for an update... Back was giving me real jip by the time I'd finished dipping & I had to get up early for work so sorry!

Sooooooooo how'd it go you ask??? Well I have to give a little background info first.. A member of the ReefPark forum was giving up his reef tank, he had Zoa's but had been losing them for a while without knowing why. Kudos to Trev in that I offered to take them if nobody wanted them to see what I could save, not only did he give them to me he delivered them from 4 hours away for just some petrol money!!!!

I dipped them on the sunday afternoon & got 2 spiders, so that proved he had the same problem as me After adding them to my QT tank I then thought it might bugger up my spider count lastnight as I now had a lot more Zoas! So this sorta brings you upto date & the dip lastnight.....

Firstly losses, another 2 didn't look good, one from trev & one of my originals so they went to the great Zoa club in the sky. All the rest dipped with a noted few loose polyps indicating to me spiders still active. OK! OK! I'll get to the point... Very pleased to say I found just 5 spiders this week & 4 of those came off the new Trev ones so it finally feels like I'm getting somewhere & worth the effort. The hope is of course to find nothing next week, but I ain't holding my breath yet.

So I hope you enjoyed this update as I've said earlier I think its taken me this long to get things under control because I had so many & the steep learning curve to begin with.

Cheers Shelton.