Could this be aiptasia

[rt67ghy]

Welcome to the club! It's very easy to end up with aiptasia when you buy corals for your tank. Once you have them you just need to find a way to control them so they don't become an infestation. I find that peppermint shrimp take care of them pretty well although they will not totally eliminate them. If you decide on peppermint be sure to get the 'Lysmata wurdemanni' species which eat aiptasia and not other varieties.

 

[mattyg18]

Will the peppermint shrimp eat or bother any of the corals in my tank? Are they compatible with clowns? And lastly do they only eat aiptasia or will they eat other stuff? I got rid of the two aiptasia stems that I found yesterday and don't see any more yet. I'm sure they will be back soon though.

And a huge thanks to everyone for contributing!!

 

[rt67ghy]

I did have a balanophyllia coral killed by a peppermint but that was because it was a very slow eater which probably allowed the shrimp to dig the food out of its stomach and kill it in the process but they haven't harmed any of my other corals. In fact when I see aiptasia on my coral frag tiles I put them near the rocks with the shrimps and the following day I find the tiles cleaned of aiptasia with no harm done to the corals. This saves me a lot of trouble; before I got the shrimps I would apply Joe's Juice to the aiptasia on the frag tiles but as you can imagine it was a real pain. This is true for even very small corals such as 1 mm size acan babies; the shrimps leave them alone. Some people may have had some negative experiences with peppermints but I think in at least some if not most of the cases the shrimps were the wrong species of peppermint.
I think if you get these shrimps, if you don't have enough aiptasia you may need to supplement their diet with fish food or pieces of frozen food if you don't have excess food lying around.

 

[mattyg18]

Great and thanks for clarifying. I'll wait until I see more aiptasia pop up before I get a peppermint.

 

[johnike]

Yes, yes it is.

 

[mattyg18]

Thats great!!

 

[johnike]

It's sold over the counter as "Pickling Lime". You should be able to get it Walmart-or any Spice shop. Calcium Hydroxide should be the only listed ingredient. and this method seems to get mixed results, from what I've read. You have to make sure the slurry stays on the aiptasia and make sure no prized coral get sprinkled by the slurry and it sticks to them, because the slurry doesn't know the difference between aiptasia and the stuff we are trying to keep the aiptasia from stinging.

My favorite method if a Raccoon Butterfly can't be used, although my cube is kept clean with Peppermints.