Apstasia.... HELP!!!

From what I have observed the peppermint shrimp have to be hungry in order for them to eat the aiptasia, I kind of target feed my other mobile inverts and fish for about 2 weeks and this made the peppermints hungry enough to turn to the aiptasia.

Before I had the shrimp, and now still if I find a new aiptasia, I use Joe's Juice. Doesn't work as well as I would like it to, but after 2 or 3 treatments (on the same aiptasia) they tend not to come back.

Oh, and dalee26, the aiptasia turning white doesn't necessarily mean that they are dying. I have seen some in sumps w/o any light that are pure white, almost clear, but thriving.
 
I have been contemplating copper-banded butterfly too - I always miss some with aptaisia x too, so what about them with coral - anybody have one?
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15234828#post15234828 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by doorlady
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Nudibranche are the best way. You will have to be patient. We bought 2 from our LFS and did not see any real change for about 2 months, then all the sudden we had no apstaia but lots of nudibranch. We sold 14 of them to our fellow reefers.
yeah thats what i'm going to do. but no lfs around here have them so i'm putting in a order here. http://www.saltyunderground.com/
 
I'm cheering for you.... Draino!!! Draino!!! Draino !!!

I've never tried it but it sounds safer than other methods I tried like injecting bleach.


I don't have aptaisia anymore I took a power drill and a syringe and bleach (rinsed off afterwards) to them. I drilled them out of their hiding places then nuked the area of all life forms then rinsed.

It was a new rock I bought...I killed them before they got a chance to spread.

I would have used Draino though if I had known.
 
ok, so I have a couple that have been showing up too. I have tried apstasia X and they come back. I do have a rather large 6-line do you think he would eat the Berghia Nudibranch?
 
This is going to sound stupid, but it worked, or the combiation. I told my wife to mix some super-saturated salt mix and inject that into the buggers. They closed up and never came back. At the time I had two peppermint shrimp. I also got a c-band butterfly fish and as soon as I put her in, she ate a lot of them. She only lived for a day and she died, so I recommend not getting one. As of now, one year later, no aiptasia.
 
If you are lucky enough to get a healthy Copperband that has an appetite for Aiptasia, then this is the best solution. I bought an Austalian Copperband 2 years ago from The Marine Center (RIP). It ate all of my Aiptasia in my 180 within 2 weeks. My tank was plagued by them. Of course,Copperbands are not easy to keep, and they don't all eat Aiptasia.
 
I had alot i mean alot of aiptasia the only thing that worked great for me was to get a needle and i would boil white vinegar and inject them with the hot vinegar.. i would kill about 10-15 every few day's it took a few weeks but i no longer have aiptasia in my tank.
 
I have had good success with copper banded butterflies, once all the aptasias are gone find him another tank that has the same problem. don't be scared if they don't eat frozens the will go around and eat all the little feather dusters first then pick off the live rock then the'll go around and eat the aptaisas. Berghias work also but there expensive. IMO don't waste your time trying to squirt them with stuff.
 
I had them to the point I was VERY worried about them getting out of control in my display. I tried everything I could besides a CBB. I would have tried that but I couldn't find one that was eating.

The last thing I tried was a Diamond goby (I was getting them growing even on the sand) and a pile more of Peppermints, cleaner shrimp, and a handful of Emerald crabs.

Something out of that last group devoured them. I had peppermint shrimp in the tank in drive before and they didn't eat anything. I'm thinking as stated above I had the wrong kind and received the correct kind this last time. The Goby I have observed eating tiny aptasia of off the sand as he eats everything else off the sand :)

I'm also thinking the emerald crabs ate some. I know they are not supposed to but I watched one on evening tear into a fairly large one. From what I understand peppermints wont touch the large ones. ALL of my large ones are gone, along with the small ones.

My fuge and sump still have aptasia, so something continues to eat them in my display. All I know is I'm a fairly happy camper because I couldn't keep up with injecting them.
 
seems general consensus is just keep trying - something has to work.... i'm going in for a cb hope he lasts for more than a week!
 
Whenever I see aiptasia I bust out the Aiptasia X. At this point, I only see maybe one a month or one every couple months. Liberal amounts of the stuff = bye bye anemone. :) If your aiptasia are coming back worse than before after using X, my money is on one of two factors:

1. simple operator error
2. infestation so large that killing one just frees up room for more to move in. X isn't really good for a widespread outbreak, but rather spot treatment.
 
I have a CBB that only eats aptaisia, as far as I know that is. He may be eating pods too because I have had him for 3 months now and he is healthy and fat.
 
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