Aptasia in zoa frag

im battling a crazy problem, lost my CBB and baby was born, now everysingle rock has apps on it. ive tried aptasia x with no help just got worse. berghia, first set ate it all, second set did nothing. CBB, too hard to keep alive. Peppermints, I have not tired, but I think I am going to do that next before break down to add new sand and rock. after tank sterilize lol... from my experiance best method is natural, chemicals just make them ****ed off
 
I noticed some white hair like stuff growing on a live rock that I had in my tank for about 2 months, It doesn't look like it blooms like a "aiptasia flower", its just white hairish stuff, Ill try to take some pics tommorrow, anyone know what it might be?
 
SushiGirl said:
I've had about 20 pepermint shrimp over the years & only one that ate aiptasia LOL.
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I read that some LFS and online stores sell a certain kind of peppermint shrimp that is very closely related to Lysmata wurdemanni, but is from a different area and does not usually eat aiptasia...can't find the article atm. I remember one of the ways to tell them apart is the stripes
 
I had 2 in the middle of a frag of watermelon zoas. The zoas spread so fast that the colony doubled and I just threw out the frag with about 30 watermelon zoas on it. Probably not a popular fix in these parts but it worked.
 
aydemir said:
I read that some LFS and online stores sell a certain kind of peppermint shrimp that is very closely related to Lysmata wurdemanni, but is from a different area and does not usually eat aiptasia...can't find the article atm. I remember one of the ways to tell them apart is the stripes
Click to expand...

I saw that article a long time ago & haven't been able to find it since!
 
Touch the zoa pulps so they close and then just scrape the aptasia as best as you can. So if your careful, you should do no harm to the zoas when scraping or you can just wand the beast. =)
 
If its on a frag the aiptasia is probably small right?

I know this may not sound like the best answer but it works for me. I use a dab of super glue gel that I frag with. Put it right onto the small baby aiptasia and glue them to death! It works.

For the big Aiptasia I have peppermint shrimp. They seem to only like the small ones and once the aiptasia gets too big they wont mess with it though... I wanna get the electrical device thing. Mojano zapper or what ever its called.
 
So, there are two types of commonly sold peppermint shrimp. The actual "peppermint shrimp" which is nice dark red all around. The second is the Catalina cleaner shrimp, which is sold as a peppermint shrimp. The Catalina is pretty much a see through red with dark red lines on it. Catalina does not eat aiptasia and peppermints do. Do your research before buying a shrimp sold as a peppermint shrimp.
 
That's interesting, the peppermint shrimp I just got fits your description of a Catalina (Clearish with dark red lines) and the two I bought eradicated the aiptasia I had in my tank overnight.
 
Taking the frag out of the water and putting superglue on the aiptasia will work assuming you can get it without getting the zoanthids or making up kalk super thick has always worked for me in the tank
 
I too have had about 20 different peppermint shrimps, bought at different times from different LFS's in different states, not one of them ever touched an aptasia. I have had some luck with aiptasia x, had a CBB that eradicated a 75 gal tank of aptasia, never tried the nudis, and scraping will almost certainly make them spread ( at least in my experience ). Never tried the zapper thing. So the only things i have personally used that worked was aptasia x and a copperband butterfly.
 
there are peppermints from different areas and many do not eat aptisia. I have yet to get any that do but i know they are out there.
 
Mix up some kalkwassar and tank water to about the consistency or pancake batter then take a syringe and inject it right into the aptasias mouth. Next morning it will be gone
 
Sorry to comment in old thread but i justctried something, i saw a nice sized sptasia on my clove polyp frag. It made a nice home in a crack. I took the frag out snd put it into a plastic tupperware. I then took a thumbtack snd started scrsping out the aptasia i kept scrsping and dipping. I left it for a few. I then siphoned out the remains and scraped again. I shook off whatever i can see in the external container. I put coral glue over the opening. I dipped and scraped. I put more glue. Dipped. Keeps gluing til no sign of an opening. I left it in there for a few minutes. Put frag back in tank. ::crosses fingers::

** I used latex gloves throughtout the procedure i disposed of the water and wiped the frag base dry**
 
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