Aiptasia issue

how large is the tank Ctepfenhart?

Copperband butterfly did a great job for me in a 5ft x 18 x 18 inch set up
they can be tricky fish to get feeding and there is the possibility that it may not adapt to the foods we add and once the Aiptasia are gone , you may be left with a problem feeder

I got lucky and mine will eat frozen, bloodworm was the 1st food it ate, probably becuase it more closely represents the type of creature it may extract from crevices and holes in the rockwork


Aiptasia X has worked for me , but it takes practice to get them properly and IME can worsen the problem whilst your perfecting the technique
and being honest I made my issue worse as a result of my inability to perform this relatively simply task ( I had a number that burped whilst being covered and we all know that means mini aiptasia are just around the corner)

Injecting vinegar has also been reasonably effective for me, but there are always specimens you cannot get to whereas a fish, the shrimp, or the Bergia can get at them

Steve
 
All the remedies in the world will only spread them if they are not completely encapsulated with the calcium liquid . I have found a 100% effective remedy and no one can make money with it so its not promoted, it cheap, easy and with immediate results. Watch some one will sell a crack pipe lighter aimed marketed for aphasia removal.

Remove the infected rock, use a simple propane torch, (I have also used Map Gas and Ox Acc torches, they are just faster) , burn them off until the area is white, it leaves no residue, no washing or scrubbing need after application. If you have zoos or other animals that you want to keep, use a short 2" piece of metal pipe held with vice grips to concentrate the flame. once they are burned, they will not spread. it takes a while to get them to the point that they are cremated. Warning! It also my give you some sadistic satisfaction along the way!!!
 
My brother in law once let aiptasia grow in his tank without care and by the time he wanted to add corals in there was no where to put any frags because every square inch was covered in aiptasia. So we went out to buy about 15 Berghia Nudibranches and they cleared his tank out within I'd like to say 2-3 weeks. He then sold all he could catch back to the community for them to use.
 
I have had great success with Lysmata wurdemanni and some success with Rhynchocinetes durbanensis. Also, we did a test in a LFS with Lysmata kuekenthali by plasing an Aiptasia infested rock in a tank where there was only Lysmata amboinensis' and kuekenthalis in it. The next morning ALL of the Aiptasia were gone!
I haven't got any kuekenthalis yet, but I will get some today after work :)
I also tried with Palaemon elegans, but have not notised any activity on treir behalf. The elegans shrimps did eat some flatworms, but not aiptasia.

Lysmata seticaudata, or the Monaco shrimp (love the name!!) may eat Aiptasia, but I believe they are not as effective as the wurdemanni. A friend of mine breeds them (seticaudata), I have to ask her about that. Would be interesting to know...

Nubibranch may eat Zoanthids, don't they?
 
Well, I checked and she said that while she hasn't actually seen the seticaudatas consuming any Aiptasia, they did disappear when the shrimps came. So maybe we can assume that they did spoliate the pest anemones...
 
trinity1012 said:
i had close to 100 or more aiptasia,i got 3 peppermint shrinp and now i cant even find a aiptasia.get the shrimp they are worth the problem your having
Click to expand...

But the problem is, that there are many species sold as "Peppermint shrimp".
I'm rather confident the Liveaquaria does know what they are selling, but some store don't know.
I have seen even Lysmata amboinensis been sold as a Peppermint shrimp.

Here is a good article by Ret Talbot on these shrimps.
http://suite101.com/article/peppermint-shrimp-imposters-a42649
 
I'm for adding a filefish or butterfly. I tried the peppermint shrimp approach with no luck, and aiptasia x gets expensive if you're killing more than a few.

Sent from my SPH-D710 using Tapatalk 2
 
HEY CT.....been there, done that..aiptasia removal

HEY CT.....been there, done that..aiptasia removal

After 40 yrs of experience there is only one way to remove aiptasia. Perseverance and patience!! AiptasiaX !! Inject 20-30 a night..
Then u need to stay on it for a few weeks...don't let it go this far again..worth the effort, but it's very frustrating!! They are stinging and hurting the good guys. Just stay with it till gone. Could take a month of nightly injections, but u can do it!! Marc
 
AiptasiaX I am using and have used on three of my tanks two were cured right away the third I have to kill every few weeks sometime the same ones come back sometime new ones. I have two now and I think one is in the rock work I cant see and keeps reproducing. Not a big think its kind of like going hunting every few weeks some day I will get them, maybe. Over a year that I have been killing.
 
Peppermint shrimp worked for me. Sometimes you need to lower your feeding so they get hungry enough to eat them. Kinda like asking me to eat a cube steak when you keep putting a t-bone in front of me.
 
I have had problems with aiptasia for the past 4 years. The subject is too complex and many people are very quick to give bias advice. Some people will recommend one method or another but it really depends on how bad your tank outbreak is. Aiptasia issue is delicate because if you don't do it right you will probably make it worst. I spend the past 2 years away from my tank (in business) on work and left my tank in the hands of staff and family. They did a good job but no one was going to take care of my aiptasia problems. The pictures is the first time i saw the tank in 10 months. I can honestly believe that no body has had an outbreak like mine; my jaws hit the ground. I had them growing on my clam and corals, overflow, circulation, etc. No one has been away from there tank for 2 years like this and let there aiptasia run wild. I actually went by a lot of folks recommendation regarding aiptasia-X few years ago (Before leaving) when the problem was still managable (but not taken seriously). In the past I've added poor copperband, peppermint shrimp, and everything recommended (but did not work). Like a dummy I thought I could wack all of them in one or two tries with Aip-X. After using aiptasia-X incorrectly the tank became even more infested with aiptasia-X.


So I finally came back to my tank this January with the goal of taking control of my aiptasia problem and ugly tank syndrome. First, I decided to remove the LR that were completely covered (don't try to X the 100% covered LR not worth it). I purchased 8 peppermint shrimps knowing that I probably will be left with 1 or 2 with in month. While people say peppermint shrimp take care of aiptasia ("just drop a few in") is both true and false. Peppermint shrimp will HELP YOU take care of aiptasia but not with out multiple things that have to go smooth. If you have a tank that's heavily stocked with aiptasia or even one's you can see, the peppermint shrimp probably won't eat them. You see Youtube videos of 3 peppermint shrimp killing a aiptasia but that's probably because the shrimps had no food options and where desperate to eat.

So I wait patiently for 2 weeks to see if the peppermint shrimps eat any aiptasia but Nothing happened. So my job was to remove the aiptasia by any means neccessary. I sucking few out with my vaccum hose. scratched them of the clam with a razor blade. I tryed using my 3200gph blasting there faces away. When you have an outbreak like mine theres really no way around it. I bought aiptasia-X and made sure this time I only took care of 20-30 per treatment; ensuring that the entire oral disk was completely covered (this is key). Buy a refill for $34 from marine depot otherwise you will use it sparingly. Note: this entire process was done in over 2-3 months time.

Today, I have had 0 visible aiptasia in my display tank since february. I know there is at least 1 or 2 that I can probably find. I know now that the peppermint shrimp do eat aiptasias (babys only) before I can even see them. I know this for a fact because I cleaned aiptasia from my overflow 3 weeks ago and already seen few growing in there. I also cut down on the frozen foods and removed my sandbed (phosphate factory). I don't have any more algae problems. The same thing that fuels algae fuels aiptasia..

What I did:
1. Remove heavily covered LR pieces
2. Get a lot of peppermint shrimp (they will help take care of babies in step 3)
3. Remove visible aiptasia by any means neccessary (aiptasia-X is best used slowly)
4. Every few weeks take note of where you see aiptasia and use Aip-X to remove few more.
5. Over time you will begin to notice zero aiptasia because the peppermint shrimp will eat
baby aiptasia. These baby aiptasia are so tiny that you won't even know they exist.
6. I have yet to use my large Aiptasia X refill and got by with just a small 2oz bottle.

Good luck and I hope this Helps.


I was so embarrassed to share these pictures on RC but knew if I could take control I would be proud to show these. While my tank looks neglected the parameters where always stable but the tank became a breeding ground for aiptasia as they where being fed frozen food mixed with marine snow daily.
<a href="http://s1324.photobucket.com/user/ashish0584/media/Iphonepictures520_zps40f218b0.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1324.photobucket.com/albums/u613/ashish0584/Iphonepictures520_zps40f218b0.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo Iphonepictures520_zps40f218b0.jpg"/></a>
<a href="http://s1324.photobucket.com/user/ashish0584/media/Iphonepictures518_zps6c8add07.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1324.photobucket.com/albums/u613/ashish0584/Iphonepictures518_zps6c8add07.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo Iphonepictures518_zps6c8add07.jpg"/></a>


My tank 1 month after last treatment of aiptasia X
<a href="http://s1324.photobucket.com/user/ashish0584/media/IMG_55311_zpsf0af0971.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1324.photobucket.com/albums/u613/ashish0584/IMG_55311_zpsf0af0971.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo IMG_55311_zpsf0af0971.jpg"/></a>
 
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