Aptasia infestation in nano

lou the reefer

New member
I have a 10 gallon that has been set for nearly a year and a half but I have sooo much aptasia. I CANT EVEN COUNT HOW MUCH APTASIA IS IN MY SMALL AQUARIUM. I was considering
1-buying a laser to kill aptasia
Or
2-restarting my whole reef tank

I am now realy desperate and need your help. What are your opinions. Thank you


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Best to start anew. I bought a laser didn't work as well as aptasia x. You have to be on top of aptasia they are always growing. I kill little ones everyday and after a few months you can rid them in your tank. Then you have to start watching again when you get a new coral. As LFS are loaded with them. They can not help it to many corals go thru their tank in a weeks time.


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I got a matted filefish for my BC 29 and within two weeks ALL the aiptasia were gone.
ps: there were hundreds of them.
Barry
 
I had a massive infection in my 54 gallon 2 months ago which I think I got from a large donated LPS. Got 8 peppermint shrimp form live aquaria. 3 weeks later. All aptasia gone. Hope this helps.


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Aptasia reproduce by spawning small versions of themselves. I would do a full water change. As others have said you could try animal to do the job. The problem is that it does not work 100% percent. I have tried every fish and invert through the past 30 years.
Fish will start eating other corals and shrimp there are several species of them an you are most likely getting one that doesn't eat aptasia as in the trade they are all called peppermint shrimp.


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Theres way to much for aptasia x. Already have the product works great for big aptasia but i have tiny aptasia everywhere. I heard you need lots (3 to5) peppermint shrimp for it to work is it true


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I have a 27 (or 29, can't remember which) with literally hundreds. I tried a Majano Wand, lye, Bergia, etc. I now have about 18 peppermint shrimp in there and in a week they have made a huge dent.

I was close to breaking it down and starting over but had some favorite corals I didn't want to lose. I am now at the point where I can start putting epoxy over the bigger ones and let the peppermints take care of the small ones.
Lasers, lye, etc don't work - they dissolve most of them but then they come back twice as dense and all at once.

If the peppermints didn't work, my last attempt was going to be to move the corals into a 10 gallon tank and use a small butane torch to burn them off and then spread the rest of the rock in the tank out and put in a galaxia and let it sting them all back to the stone age.
 
I hate aptasia. I have had success with peppermint shrimp. However, you really need a supplier that knows what they have, some shrimp sold as peppermints wont even look twice at the stuff. I read a good article on the aptasia eating variety, but i cant find it at the moment, ill dig it up and link it to you.

However, I had a small nano like yours and I eventually got tired of fighting it, and moved my corals to a qt and started over... I bleached the heck out of the rocks, then hit them with acid, and then re cured them. it took some time, but it did get rid of them. If the aptasia are on the skeletons of your coral, you can try the lighter method Just becareful to not damage the coral It could be fun to fry a few of them.
 
The peppermint shrimp I got were known for getting rid of aptasia from live aquaria. Shipping can be high but every time I went to local fish store, they were out. There is a warranty from live aquaria for 14 days.


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Aptasia infestation in nano

The problem is that i live in canada dont know if shipping works to our very cold and snowy contry


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The lasers and wands and whatnot don't work.

Even aiptasia X and some of the other commercially available products aren't especially successful.

Your situation is tough if they're really everywhere, but I would recommend just using kalk paste. Mix some kalk with some RO/DI water, make a thick paste, and paste it on the aiptasia, making sure that when they shrink down into their hidey-holes, the hole is also filled with the kalk paste too.

If they are EVERYWHERE in your tank, you either need to take it slow with the kalk (i.e. do 10% of your tank at a time) so you don't increase your pH too much all at once, or you could start over. If you do decide to start all over, you need to start with a bleach bath, then water with Seachem prime to neutralize the bleach, then you should be okay to do an RO/DI bath for a while, and then use it again.
 
Thanks for the advice figured out that i will give aptasia x a last try and bleache the rocks if that dose not work


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IME, aiptasia-x is worse than kalk. My buddy just used it to try to get rid of a small aiptasia on a clam shell. He swore by it. It didn't work. My recommendation: Kill it with fire (not literally fire, but kalk paste). I imagine he'll try that next time.
 
I have heard that dosing vinegar helps a lot , the truth behind that is unknown though. My recommendation would be kalk , boiling water , or lemon juice and try to single out as many as you possibly can.
 
I have heard that dosing vinegar helps a lot , the truth behind that is unknown though. My recommendation would be kalk , boiling water , or lemon juice and try to single out as many as you possibly can.

Dosing vinegar will absolutely not help get rid of aiptasia. It might help nutrient levels slightly, but that's unrelated to aiptasia. Boiling water I wouldn't bother with, lemon juice is going to mess up your pH and nutrient load (it'll reduce nutrients slightly, but it'll bomb your pH).

I honestly, truely, think that slow and steady one-by-one kalk paste application is the way to go. If you're infested to the point of where you'll never find them all, you can try a berghia nudibranch, or matted filefish (I think that's the one, there's only one filefish that eats aiptasia, and I think ORA breeds them now too).
 
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