Top 5 Pests in Reef Aquariums

Hitchhiker pests unfortunately are a reality in the reef keeping hobby. As a conscientious hobbyist, one can never ever assume that a coral or rock is clean because it comes from a seemingly good system. Developing a systematic approach to new coral introduction is worth its weight in gold if it successfully prevents just one outbreak. Some combination of preventative dips and quarantine will help immensely as will purchasing from aquacultures sources as those corals are more likely to have undergone dipping themselves. This video is a list of my top 5 worst pests. Let me know if you agree or disagree and list your worst in the comments below.

Music:
Tracks: “Night Cave”
License Terms:
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

Video:
Camera information:
Footage was shot with a Canon C100
Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L IS macro
Canon EF MP-E 65mm f/2.8 macro
Canon EF-S 10-18mm f/4-4.5 STM IS
Sigma Art 18-35mm f/1.8

Copyright Information:
This video was shot and edited by Tidal Gardens. Tidal Gardens owns all intellectual property rights to this content.

Editing Software License:
Final Cut Pro License Agreement 1. C. - "Title and intellectual property rights in and to any content displayed by or accessed through the Apple Software belongs to the respective content owner."
2. B. – “Sample Content. Title and intellectual property rights in and to any content displayed or accessed through the Apple Software belongs to the respective content owner…Except as otherwise provided, you may use the Apple and third party audio file content (including but not limited to, the built-in sound files, samples and impulse responses)(collectively the "Sample Content"), contained in or otherwise included with the Apple Software on a royalty-free basis, to create your own original soundtracks for your film, video, and audio projects.

[Goofygooberston]

When I was browsing a local exotic pet store and talking with the owner about stuff he gets out in QT he told me about how one time he had a large shipment of live rock and smaller fish in his big QT tank in the back, only for a lot of the fish to start disappearing shortly after everything was starting to get settled in the QT. Apparently somehow a smaller mantis shrimp got in and was going to town on everything it crossed paths with. Absolutely brutal, those things and bobbit worms are the stuff of nightmares.

[macrotech]

How could anyone give any of your videos a thumbs down. You are a scientist with this stuff! Talk about an expert!

[scubascott]

I'd love a video on the dipping / quarantining techniques you've found to be effective over the years. Thanks

[ColdwaterTanks]

One man's pest is another man's treasure.. ;) I think the sea spiders are incredibly cool, so I've just put 10+ of them in my cold water tank! They are a hungry bunch, but as long as they got hydroids to munch on, they seem happy enough!

[ElectricBlueslife]

Ive definitely come across zoanthid eating spiders in the past, but simply assumed they were harmless baby brittle stars. Boy was I wrong...

[quartapound]

I have been in the hobby for 5 years and I have managed to somehow completely avoid pests! I know my luck will run out sooner or later, living the dream until then (with proper dipping and quarantine of course)

[nataliepatterson]

great video. ... just started up a tank about 7 weeks ago... i didn't even know about these pest.... we will keep our eyes on things, thanks..

[josephcraig]

Nudibranchs seem to need extra time in a dip to kill! What has worked for me is 1. Dipping 2. Manual removal! Use tweezers and really look hard using bright light and even magnifying glasses. 3. Remove eggs!!!! This is the most important step. Do this every week for a few weeks and then again a couple weeks after that just to check again. Then AGAIN in a month. I've wiped mine out this way and never saw them again.

[PetkoPopadiyski]

I totally agree about the montipora eating nudibranches. I've tried maybe 4-5 different types of dips, all of them helped eradicate the nudibranches, but in few days the eggs hatched and they reappeared. Only after throwing all of the brown montipora corals and leaving a small piece of green montipora I was able to eradicate the infestation. It took me around 6 months of effort.

[amdunn]

Oh my gosh. Thank you for your video. needed help with one of the top 5 and am going for it!

[bojklayman]

The way you make monti nudis sound like the black plague is very interesting to me, I work at a store where we bring in lots of maricultired corals and we just so managed to get MEN's I was the one to discover them, just like every other pest because I sit there and stare at our corals during downtime. Using 3 tanks other than the tank discovered in and a dip in-between each tank 1 week apart then once into the final tank we filled it with bullseye mandarins and six line and yellow Coris wrasse we were able to beat it completely

[rakhu]

Thanks for the info, but can you list the natural predators for these pest?

[seanfleming]

Tried the potassium permanganate bath for the monti nudibranchs. Removed all montipora colonies and dipped them for an hour in the PP solution. It did eradicate all the nudibranchs and their eggs but it was very stressful to the already stressed montis.
The red monti cap is slowly bouncing back but the green monti cap seems to have dumped all its green colored zooxanthellae and taken on some of the red montis zooxanthellae as it is now turning to a pink/red color. It will be interesting to see if it can bounce fully back but as a new color.

[hesdeadjim]

Awesome video! Super informative... never seen such great shots of spiders and nudibranchs like that.

[technibroomco]

If you let the coral slime for a certain amount of time in the atmosphere before the dip sometimes it helps reading some more of the pests and their eggs during set dip

[fredbeer]

At 11:42 what are those white little egg things moving? Are those harmful because i have them in my reef and been noticing some of my zoas disappearing. Please respond because i haven't found any info about them till i was your video.

[RobMcCauslandArt]

That Bobbit worm you mentioned sends chills up my spine. I hope I never cross paths with the liking of them. Bubble algae are the biggest pain. I've been fighting an infestation for almost 3 months now and they just won't go away. Any tips? I do manual removal and I have hermit and Emerald crabs that are helpings, but at the end of the day they turn to eating whatever is left of the fish feed.

[tindrum]

I had a Mantis come in with a clam once, easy to get rid of, the worst was a bobbit worm, wiped out everything in my nano, my wrasse, goby, fanworms, you name it...oh and flippin aptasia, Berghia were purchased and disappeared for all time, never to be seen again, and yet, here I go trying again over in the UK with a new nano!!!

[marinenaut]

Can you do a top 5 hitchiker that people want?

[irishlad]

Buddy quick question lifted a few 5inch frag rocks full of mushroom I have switched to San tmc eco from glass bottom wen l looked underneath there like bright red jelly like tenticles things under I know its not aptasia I just got rid of that wiv nudiz it was like feathery but bright red jelly and tubes made out of sand like a cadis larvy any ideas just toothbrushes them off with vinigar out of the tank in kitchen thank