Aiptasia Question

[dcforhealth]

I have an opportunity to take over a friend's tank. Actually, to take any and all of it's inhabitants.

The problem is, he has had Aiptasia for years. He's tried many ways to rid them from the tank without success. I would like to take on alot of the corals he has but would rather not start with a problem that so many people have.

What do you suggest? Take them or start from scratch?

 

[Mel-E-Mel]

Take them, cut whatever corals you can off the rock and dry out the rocks. dip in mixture of muriatic acid, powerwash, let dry then cook.

 

[Mel-E-Mel]

BTW, welcome to RC! Do a search on cleaning rocks with muriatic acid and cooking rocks.

 

[Typo R]

you can get some peppermint shrimps to help battle the aitapsia.

 

[jacob.morgan78]

If you just want the coral, take the coral and only the coral. Leave the rock and other material behind. Or clean the rock thoroughly and add it later on.

 

[jong11]

Agreed, cut the corals off the rock or frag plugs and put them on new plugs. Run a frag tank if you have no where else to put them until you have a display set up with new or cleaned live rock and a cycled tank.

 

[dcforhealth]

Thanks for the advice... I will probably try to cherry pick what i take. Most of this coral is stuff I gave this fellow about 10 years ago when I moved and left the hobby for a while. Kinda hate to not keep it going.

 

[wildman926]

you can get some peppermint shrimps to help battle the aitapsia.

I have done this with great success on several different tank setups. Just be glad it is not mejano anemones. I have to battle that now with a new 1w laser!

 

[Playa-1]

Aptasia is easily managed. I think people make way to big of a deal out of it.

 

[sbabs]

You can always kill it prior to bringing the rock home. I've had great success just using a syringe and kalk paste. As morbid as it sounds, it's rather gratifying to shoot the paste into that evil nem, and watch it shrivel up and then pop.

 

[reef4life07]

What about cooking, or curing the rocks for 2 weeks or so till they die off...I had a bad outbreak off red bubble algae, bake the rocks for a month and been good since...it's a thought.

 

[littlec984]

I had good success with boiling water and a syringe. I took the rock out of my tank, filled the syringe with boiling water and inserted it into the aptasia

 

[skidoctor]

I done the boiling method. Works real well. Aptasia-X is supposed to work well. I'd say go organic and get some peppermint shrimp or a file fish, but I never had luck going that route.

 

[OodleyBoodely]

What about cooking, or curing the rocks for 2 weeks or so till they die off...I had a bad outbreak off red bubble algae, bake the rocks for a month and been good since...it's a thought.

Not likely to work. Aips are tough and likely to outlast any and all attempts to cook the rock. It would probably take a year or more of light deprivation to kill them off and I'm not sure even then it would be 100% :crazy1:

 

[R_Hudson]

If its available, aptasia x and a syringe. The kind used for insulin work really well due to their small yet sharp tip. gently fill the apasia with killer in the tank and poof, no more aptasia

 

[thebanker]

Lasers, or aiptasia eating filefish will do the trick, if you want different remedies.

I have some beautiful pieces of rock that were once coated in aiptasia. Unless you never introduce them to your tank, you can never truly get rid of them.

Honestly though, they aren't all that bad as people make them out to be.

 

[lmsmith]

Not likely to work. Aips are tough and likely to outlast any and all attempts to cook the rock. It would probably take a year or more of light deprivation to kill them off and I'm not sure even then it would be 100% :crazy1:

I had a pet apstasia that lived outside with no lighting for 2 years. For at least 1/2 of that, the water was chlorinated water out of my swimming pool. It eventually died when all the water exaporated.

 

[OodleyBoodely]

I had a pet apstasia that lived outside with no lighting for 2 years. For at least 1/2 of that, the water was chlorinated water out of my swimming pool. It eventually died when all the water exaporated.

LOL! I really wasn't kidding! I kept some rock going in a dark bucket for months waiting to use it on a new tank...the aiptasia were clear, but very much alive! I also had a couple mushrooms that survived as clear little blobs of jelly...nearly dead, but did recover with light...this had to be at least 4 month in dark with just a powerhead and infrequent fw topoffs. They are tough!

BTW, I've also been the peppermint shrimp and aiptasia-eating nudibrach route, too. They all work to some extent, but, always, a couple months after the last aipt dissappears, they come back! None of the natural methods will 100% eliminate them...can't...or the nudibrachs would become extinct. They always leave enough viable aiptasia material for the aipts to come back. So...my best advice is to learn to live with them, just controlling them as needed. :bigeyes:

 

[dcforhealth]

I think I'll go my original route, cherry pick some nice stuff, quarantine it and see what comes of it.

I've been toiling about whether or not to take the green star polyps that he has too. I've had them before and that stuff is like bamboo, you never really get rid of it.

 

[brad908]

Aiptasia x worked well for me