Aptasia have infiltrated tank, berghia's needed

[willjeff]

It started out with a cute little brown aptasia, at the time I didn't even bother with it as I was battling hair and bubble algae. I have defeated the algae problems by increased skimming and flow. So to make a long story short I'm looking at ordering some berhia nudi's. I've emailed coralsandbar.com to see if they have any in stock. Whoever has any input on berghia's let me know and I will keep everyone posted how this pans out.

 

[purplehaze]

You can always try some peppermint shrimp first..add around 4 big ones, they should get the Aiptasia under control..unless it has taken over your whole tank

 

[jkable]

The way i deal with aptasia is kalk them. I mix up a thick slury of kalk and water, and use a surgical shringe with needle. You can buy one at any farm supply store, they are sold to give livestock shots. Once i have the slury in the shringe with the needle on it, i turn off the pump and squirt them, if they are large enough i stick the needle directly in them, otherwise i just cover them and as they draw into the rock i cover where they went into. I would recomend just doing this to 5 or ten every night. I leave the pumps off for 5 minutes, so i don;t get the kalk on other corals. This is what i do and it works great for me. Just remember kalk will raise your ph, i try to limit it to 5 ml per killing, Also the pepermint shrimp do help.

 

[adam82]

my 29g is over run with aiptasia i bought 3 peps and they ate all the aiptasia on the back side of the rock but wouldn't come to the front. so i didn't feed the tank for a week and they started killing each other.

 

[matter1331]

If you're going to do peps, don't do big ones, everything I've read says juveniles do the best, so keep them small. Also, cut back on feeding a little bit when they first go in, if they get used to eating frozen food they won't care about aptaisia.

 

[IslandCrow]

Don't get the berghia's. They will get rid of your aptasia, but since they only eat anemones, they'll die once the aptasia is gone. These nudibranchs really shouldn't be captured and sold for this hobby, and as responsible hobbiests, we shouldn't support their sale. Peppermint shrimp will often times do the trick, and people have had very good success with copper banded butterfly fish as well. In some ways, chemical removal (using kalk paste or Joe's Juice) can be the most effective way, since peppermints and CBBs are probably going to end up leaving a small bit of the aptasia behind, which is going to eventually grow into a new one. Of course, you should still have the shrimp/fish around when it grows back to eat it again.

 

[matter1331]

Just keep in mind, if the shrimp get used to frozen food or any other prepared food aptaisia may not be something they readily go after. I've had great success with the peppermints, two completely cleaned out my 46, which was covered, in about a week.