Aptasia Experiments

[kkenn]

A lot of Butterflyfish species eat Aiptasia.

A lot of Butterflyfish species eat Aiptasia.

 

[adam82]

i would go with the berghia nudi if they werent do expensive for how many you need.

 

[jnowell]

You only need 2, they will make 100's in a matter of weeks in a heavily infested aquarium, provided the filter intakes are covered.

Jason

 

[adam82]

thats all you need? i have over 300 aiptasia in my 29g. my peppermint shrimp do nothing. yes im sure they are peppermint not camel.

 

[Nammy]

Don't bother with the lemon juice! By injecting the aiptasia you make micro tears that will grow into a new one. Joe's juice will work without injecting inside the aiptasia but again when you think the problem is gone another one appears. Hot water injection? Don't think so, by the time you're ready to inject and reach down in the tank, the water isn't that hot anymore.
Injecting is not the best way to go, it may help control a limited amount of aiptasia but not for a bunch.

 

[zmar84]

Here is my out of control tank...

and after I used Joe's Juice and got some peppermints...

I agree that it is hit or miss with the peppermints but I think they are the easiest and cheapest way to eliminate aiptasia. Just kill some of the larger ones with Joe's Juice and the peppermints get the rest.

(sorry for lagging your connections with these big pictures but sometimes you don't feel like writing the thousand words that the picture is worth.)

 

[Nammy]

Good luck

 

[kkenn]

If the Aiptasia problem is very big, I still suggest use a Red Sea Golden butterfly to control it,after all aiptasia gone,u can easy to catch this butterfly easy by a catching cage with shrimp,they like shrimp meat

Ken

 

[wds21921]

The kalk dosing has always worked for me but I use it sparingly with a ink refill needle to does right in the mouth as it's opened. Added some (genuine) peppermints as well and they are helping to keep it in check.

I think that once you've got Aptasia your probably always going to have it. We just don't see it as much afterwards because we treat it often times biologically which helps to keep it in check. It can be hidden so far down in some rock you couldn't possibly find it if you wanted to.
Since it reproduces so easily I have a hard time believing that it can ever be totally eliminated once you've had an outbreak.

 

[fishmon]

I use Joe's juice successfully, I heard that besides kalk it has selcon or something like it so the anemones will eat it, thats why you don't actually inject it in them, you just cover their mouths, they do the rest.

 

[wds21921]

Same as my kalk application, you don't actually pierce the mouth or the body you simply get close and fill the mouth up with kalk. How is the selcon going to have any effect when they have a mouthful of kalk? Not questioning you, only the reason for the ingredients.

 

[fishmon]

When you cover the mouth, your doing just that, covering it. The anemone can expell water out its mouth, blowing the kalk away. The selcon is supposed to get the anemone to ingest the kalk instead. Just heresay, I don't know this for fact.

 

[fishmon]

Actually I was wrong, this is the link for whats actually in Joe's Juice.....http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=6898995#post6898995

 

[rcmike]

Hmm, maybe it is because they use salt water instead of fresh water mixed with the calcium hydroxide. I have had much better results with Joe's juice than kalk for some reason.

 

[wds21921]

Thanks for the follow-up fishmon. The inclusion of Selcon (as an appetite stimulator) would be almost negligible with that much kalk included.
The salt mixed in and then boiled together does make more sense. Much clearer now, thank you.

 

[Ciarán]

I noticed about 5-6 tiny aiptasia popping up on one of my rocks. I have had those rocks for 8 months or so without any aiptasia problems and suddenly i noticed them. The way i dealt with it was: I got a dremel and a chisel and took out a whole chunk about an inch below where the anemones resided. Then dumped the infested rock and put the cleansed rock back. Its under intense observation. Prevention is better than cure.

 

[alizarin]

Here's my experience with Molly Miner blennies and pepermint shrimp:

There are lots of blennies in Tampa Bay that look exactly like the photo that carp1959 posted as Molly Miner Blennies (http://img164.imageshack.us/img164/9983/picture3gd.jpg). I caught two of these juveniles (1 inch and another a half inch) and put them in a minibow 2.5 with a half dozen small aiptasia and they've yet to touch them after a week despite being hungry. They ate my nasarius snails right off though.

I had 2 aiptasia that I added to my tank a year ago before I realized they were bad and the pepermint shrimp I bought took them out in a day. When I got this outbreak from a new piece of live rock that same pepermint would never touch them. Seems like even the pepermints that do eat aiptasia don't keep up the habbit.

 

[Ciarán]

I have 2 small aiptasia at present that i got from new LR i bought on Saturday. Im currently trying an ultra concentrated Ca(Cl)2 (Calcium Chloride) addition to see if it does anything similar to Kalk, though i sincerely doubt it. They dont like it though, they run away and contract into their cowardly holes. Persistence may prevail I hope!

 

[Ciarán]

Update: The Calcium chloride wiped out a small aiptasia! Very good news IMO, the calcium input is safer than kalk with no pH spike or alkalinity worries. 1cm^3 was all that was needed via a hypodermic syringe. Excess calcium is then immediately 1000% bio-available without skewing the alkalinity balance.

 

[Pico Keeper]

I didn't read the whole thread.

But I would split the rock into sections. Throw the first section into the tank your going to treat. Feed all the aiptasia's so they are big and fat, and start injecting them with kalk. Granted this will mess up your water quality and calcium and ph will be all over, but that it why you dont do this in your actual display tank. Kill as many as you can with kalk, and then send them to another tank full of peppermints and bergs. Let them take care of all that's left over. When that's done, move the rock into the display.

start over. also keep peppermints in the display to eat the little ones that will almost certainly be left behind. Be sparing with the kalk, as if you inject too much and it drips out, it will kill all coralline it touches.