Aiptasia Losing Battle

[8-ball]

I am fighting a losing battle against aiptasia, I was hoping for some feedback on the lesser or evil so to speak in combating it. I have a mixed reef lps, zoas, sps, one toadstool and a clam.

I have been trying weekly to inject the aiptasia with boiling lemon juice but its not working too well.

I have a melanarus wrasse that I would imagine would pig out on any peppermint shrimps I add or Aiptasia eating nudibranchs.

Which brings me to either bring in an aiptasia eating filefish or copperbanded butterfly. I was thinking of selling off my remaining high dollar zoas if I added either of these but which would be the "lesser or two evils" so to speak in terms of coral carnage I may unleash in my tank with the addition of one of these guys.

 

[xDempsey]

I'm no expert but I simply added a bunch of peppermint shrimp and every 3rd day inject that kalk calcium stuff into the bigger ones.
Over the last 2 weeks I have almost no aptasia

 

[LoJack]

I went the copperband route with my problem. I had probably 1000 in my tank and was losing the battle chemically as well. My tank was too large for berghia to be cost effective, and peppermints are hit or miss, and most say they'll only eat the tiny aiptasia anyway.

I added my copperband and within the first two days I noticed a huge decline in the population. All of my aiptasia are gone now and he still doesn't really nip at anything. Hasn't touched any zoas or acans. I seen him pick a few times at a favia, but thats all. I'll probably get rid of him as he gets more prone to picking at desireable corals. I did notice though that his tastes for aiptasia prevented him from picking at anything else until they were completely gone. He definitely preferred aiptasia to everything else and ate all of them before he started looking elsewhere for his next meal.

 

[maynardjames]

battle

battle

been hearing a lot of good results from the file fish. been in battle for years kalk is cheapest thing i have used aiptasia x seems to work better for me too expensive though. always one or two left under rock or something to make many more. thinking of going the file fish route. has to be something to get everywhere. fish a lot cheaper then the berghia

 

[NaH20Eh]

I had good luck with file fish eating majanos (I don't have any aiptasia) -- but they did nip at my zoas and my open brain. After they got rid of all the majanos I returned them to the LFS. Recenty noticed two new majanos.... I think I will try injecting these.

 

[8-ball]

Thanks for the replies guys, I appreciate the input!

 

[alex gonzales]

Seen amazing results with a file fish also.

 

[Doogy]

Between file fish and peppermints, no aiptasia

 

[8-ball]

Looking like im going to be bringing in a file fish then!

 

[steelwrap]

I squirted mrs wages pickling lime(same as kalk?) on mine.

 

[xDempsey]

I always notice after injecting the calcium stuff though my corals and things seem to be affected. Anemones close up and stuff. I'm wondering if this is due the the alkalinity calcium bond. I think just adding calcium without adding alkalinity will slightly change your pH. I'm still pretty new so I might have stuff jumbled around.

 

[cakemanPA]

I was able to keep a small handful in check with kalk paste. Eventually the numbers got out of hand. I have a smallish Cbb that eats mysis and flake in QT. There is a rock with aiptasia on it. He has already just about cleaned that rock.

 

[mpderksen]

Is it THIS bad????

It was a 10gallon, so I had few options.

Michael

 

[Jamey1010]

Holy cow that is a lot of aptasis's the filefish are a good choice but may need to find a new home after he eats them all like mentioned, butterflies sometimes won't eat them or just get a lot of shrimp to dump in there the wrasse can't eat all, maybe a nice combo and get rid of those things

 

[cakemanPA]

Ummmmmmm... WOW

Is it THIS bad????

It was a 10gallon, so I had few options.

Michael

 

[reefer999]

^ Wow, never seen it that bad, hope OP's situation is better.

 

[mpderksen]

Here is the tank just months before. It was my very first and I was SO attentive! Notice the first few Aptasia in the front right that came with the yellow polyps. If I had known what it was, I could have gotten on top of it. I had to use napalm on the tank after 2 years of amazing-ness.

 

[Jamey1010]

what a difference and all those nice zoas are probably still under there, and once they stop being stung by all the aptasia they should come back nicely