Zoas Spider

[Gazbo72]

I think my recently purchased zoas might have spiders in them, Out of the colony of about 15 zoas there is 2 that is slightly different from the rest colour wise and at night when they go in these two seem to have a sucked in part in the stem the reason that leads me to think I have got spiders is that I caught a spider with my baster the other day it was floating around the tank in the current.

Lukily this is the only zoas I have at the minute so they wont be getting into any other colonies.

So here come the questions

I read some time ago about doing a fresh water dip to rid the zoas of spiders. Does any one know the correct way to do this ie how long for and will they need to be acclimatised back to the tank ?


Also how long would you leave it after the water dip if succesful before getting any more zoas if I decide to in the future ( I like the look of the radioactive green ones but I dont think I,ll buy any of Ebay unless any one on here has any unwanted frags of them for sale B) ). Or is it quite easy to have these spiders and not know when selling them and I,ve just been unlucky.

Thanks for any help in advance regards Gaz

 

[littleme1969]

Hi..
Ive had many Zoos of e.bay from many different sellers and one of them did have spiders on it. The frags where small so I was able to remove the spiders manually with little problem. To be honest I wouldnt have thought a fresh water dip would make much difference. As these are crab in origin and I know myself I soak all my new rock in RO for 1hr to remove rubbish and pets etc and my pest crabs never came out of the rock. Skifletch seemed to know what best dips to use as he replied to my original ID post on them. Give him a PM I'm sure he will help.
Also zoos can tend to be a tempremantal when first setling into a tank, Ive had period where certain polyps seem to shrink and not open for a while, only to recoover in about a week and be fine.
If you would like me to point you in the direction of the good/bad zoo sellers on e.bay I will be happy to do that

 

[SkiFletch]

Well, here's what I'd do. First, manually remove the rock and look for any zooanthid spiders and remove them manually as you see them. Second, I'd dip the frag in a lugols (iodine) dip for ~15 minutes. Take some tankwater, add iodine until the water looks rust colored, put the coral in it. I would also dip it in Interceptor which is a perscription drug used to kill fleas on dogs. It kills all crustaceans (crabs, spiders, pods, hermits, etc) so only use it as a dip unless you want to kill all pod life in your tank. Most vets will perscribe you Interceptor for your tank if you tell them what it's for.

 

[Gazbo72]

Thanks for the replys I think I,m going to go down the natural route and hope my mandarin or choati wrasse get them if not I will give the colony a couple of months to see if the spiders have gone if not I will remove the colony and leave the tank zoas free for a few months. What would be a safe time limit on leaving the tank zoas free

Does any one know if these spiders will eat any LPS corals or are they just specific to zoas

I did find another thread last night were some poor guy had a terrible infestation which has devastated his tank . I think I,m lucky that I only have one small colony so if it doesn,t work out my loss isn,t that great.

Littleme a IM about good/bad ebayers would be appreciated.

Regards Gaz

 

[Gazbo72]

I got home from a afternoon shift tonight to only find a spider sat right in full view of me on my zoos so out the colony come and I managed to get 3 spiders of manually 8)

I found that rolling the colony about made the spiders come out of hiding ( its detatched from the rock I think this is caused by he spiders eating it away). After that I,ve give a dip in room temp RO so hopefully that might kill anything else off. Their was two pods that was on it when I dropped it in the RO that died within seconds so hopefully any spider hiding inside will go the same way .

So 5 minutes in RO then back into the tank water now floating in a container in the tank ready for inspection in the morning

Heres a picture of the little critters

Thats 4 in total from this little colony

 

[SkiFletch]

I'm unsure about quarantine procedures for zoa spiders, but those pictures definitely look like them. Good luck

 

[Gazbo72]

Just a quick update.

I,ve checked most night (work shifts) since the manual removal and RO dip and no spiders to be seen .Also no holes in the stalks like before and they are all opening up now

So fingers crossed looks like I,ve been lucky

 

[Gazbo72]

Hopefully these two badboys have got any that I missed