Chili surgery?

[glparr]

Here's one I never thought I'd have to deal with. I've had a few aiptasia lately and have been killing them with lye. I was checking out my chili coral with a flashlight tonight and discovered I have an decent sized aiptasia growing on its body and it looks like a second small one closer to the base. Unbelievable!! Open to any suggestions for removing them without killing the chili.
Gary

 

[glparr]

Never mind. In a fit of anger, I threw caution to the wind and zapped that little ba&$*%}! with lye. Aiptasia dead, at least for now. Chili showed no ill effects. Five minutes later polyps were open. Remains to be seen how quickly the growth site heals and regains its red color. If the coral is doing well in a couple of days, I'll zap the little one. This hobby is never boring.
Gary

 

[Spracklcat]

gary, I've cut lots of soft corals to remove diseased areas. As long as you give it a wide margin around the dieseased area to make sure you remove all the badness, it's usually fine. In this case it was less disease, but same idea, and it probably could have been peeled off if need be. I once had a seahorse who went around for a day or so with an Aiptasia stuck on top of his head like a crown.

 

[Aquabacs]

Gary they are pretty tough and you might start seeing signs of the area repair itself by this evening. I have similar events occur with my WA beadlet anemones and I just use my finger nails to remove them if they settle on any soft corals (reminder to wash hands/fingers in lemon juice afterwords...helps remove that beautiful smell).

Time to derail....Chris how is your azoox tank project coming along?

Mike

 

[glparr]

This morning, there was some residual tissue at the attachment area. I tried to remove it with a probe and the whole thing came off, revealing no damage to the underlying tissue. What looked last night to be potential for disaster turned out to be not much of an issue at all.

The aiptasia I'm dealing with are frustrating because the are almost completely clear. I'm finding that they're easier to spot in the dark with a flashlight. I think they're all dead now, but how many times have we all said that about aiptasia.

Gary

 

[uhuru]

I bought 10+ berghia nudibranchs to control my aiptasia problem. They have been slowly and quietly keeping it under control. The main problem I have so far is they don't seem to go after the ones that are growing on the sandbed or the ones that are growing on gorg branches. I've been told that once they eliminate all the ones on the rocks they will start to venture out more but we'll see. They have almost wiped out all the ones on the rocks that I can see. Its much easier to manually remove the ones on the sandbed and gorgs anyway.

Here you can see them laying eggs by an aiptasia colony. About a week later all but 1 aiptasia on this rock were gone. There must have been about 10 aiptasia + baby ones that kept popping up.

 

[Spracklcat]

I had great luck with a filefish eating Aiptasia and majano anemones for me. Right now the colonies of Tubastrea I have are in my main tank, and in order to keep them healthy I've been vastly overfeeding the system, which is leading to Aiptasia issues. I don't care much aesthetically at the moment, but it would be nice to get rid of them anyway. I am nervous though, that the filefish will try to eat the tubastrea. Anyone try this previously?

Mike--the Azoox tank will be a slow process due to sparse time and funding. However, that does allow me to put thought into the project upfront to plan the physical aspects and to study the biologicals.

 

[slapshot]

Gary I have covered a couple with super glue. It did not seem to affect the chili but took care of the aiptasia. I guess it is the bad news of all the phyto feeding we do. You just have to cover the entire area. I need to get me some of those Nudis. I was too slow on DD. Mike do you have a good source?

 

[uhuru]

I got mine from a club group buy. Not sure where they got them from, but I can find out if you are interested. Expect it to be pretty expensive with the shipping added to it though... unless you can get a few people together.

 

[slapshot]

Thanks I would appreciate that. DD has them once and awhile. I could use them. What isn't expensive in this hobby?