filefish or copperband?

[unboundmind]

i am looking for a weed eater specifically for anastasia aka as aptaisa. what would be the best eater and easiest keeper??

 

[aquaph8]

Peppermint shrimp, i have no experience with filefish but Copperbands are tough to keep. They're pretty much hit or miss whether they will eat the aiptasia. Trust me man Peps are the way to go. I had a plague that I thought I would never beat and 10 peps took care of it in about a month. I still see one here and there, but its much better.

 

[sillygoose]

+1 on both the peps and the copperbands. The butterflies are so pretty but hard to keep. We had one for about a week - it broke my heart to see it die. I have no experience with file fish. I had 3 (down to 1) peppermint shrimps and they wiped out a healthy population of aptaisia. Haven't seen any in months and months. I had to go kill all of the bigger ones, but the small ones disappeared.

 

[aquaph8]

Yeah, I noticed I had to knock the big ones down with Aip-X before the peps would mess with em. The peps always seem to wither down to 1 or none over time. Something tells me their little cannibals.

 

[Rhino207]

Hello, I had a BIG time aiptasia problem about 8 months ago and I spent $20 on the Aiptasia-X. I did 3 different treatments over a 1 month period and only killed a small portion. I found it to be such a BIG pain to turn off all your equipment to let the water become still so that I could treat the aiptasia. So I went and bought a File fish based on my research/asking around. Within in two days...really!!! I found no sign of Aiptasia anywhere in the tank and have not seen one since. I've heard that that file fish are very picky eaters when there is not any aiptasia are around, but I have great success with mine. He eats everything,,,,flake, mysis, brine, nori off the veggie clip w/my tangs and anything else he can find. I was in SEA today and they had one and it is 25% off, great price. I also saw two at Tropical Kingdom. IMO I think he is one of the best bang for my buck and problem.

Rhino

 

[iamwrasseman]

aptasia x does work well if you do it exactly as instructions explain but you will never get rid of them all as you cant get the tiny ones . pep shrimp work well but they can be eaten . i have a file fish that is supposed to eat aptasia and he is very slow at his job to say the least . 30 or so aptasia in a month and still some left . my resident copperband is like a john deere cutting grass and is the best at it so far but still you never can get the babies that are released when they sense death and release their spores . my copperband is moved from tank to tank and does a great job but they are somewhat difficult to keep . i have been rather lucky with my present CBB as i have had him for three years and he does great . i put him in a tank for a month and all is gone then move him to the next tank and rotate him when needed . all my tanks are on a common sump so there is no acclimation needed . the acclimation period is when you will have difficulties IMO as they are somewhat tough . mine works great and i wish that i could then add a few pep shrimp to keep up on the babies but my wrasses will eat them within minutes after adding them so i cant .
IMO copperband is the best way as they also will eat meat and survive without aptasia present .
aptasia x also will work very well if you follow the instructions to the T.
once you get aptasia it is very tough to 100% eradicate unless you can get some true pep shrimp to graze the babies .be sure that what you buy are truely pep shrimp as some others look close but will noy eat aptasia .
hope i helped and i wish you the best .

 

[clockdoc]

I agree about copper banded being hard to keep. Once food source is depleted ............. ! I use a hypodermic needle and lemon juice. Very small injection in the base of the pest and the next day it is dead ! If infestation is massive ....... do a small area a day to avoid PH changes. In my 55 gallon ( now I have a 125 ) I did a quarter of the tank paused a day then another quarter and so on. Worked real well as long as you could find the base of the aiptasia. That is where the copper banded has an advantage. His long snout gets in the cracks and crannies.

 

[unboundmind]

thanks everyone for your help. i'm weighing the choices and probably a combination approach will be best. i'm wondering if my flame hawkfish will feast on peppermint shrimp or if they can survive long enough to help. thanks for the heads up on the benefits and risks of various methods.

 

[mattsummers]

File Fish Cleaned up my 150 in a week. i had over 50 aiptaisia.

 

[aquaph8]

thanks everyone for your help. i'm weighing the choices and probably a combination approach will be best. i'm wondering if my flame hawkfish will feast on peppermint shrimp or if they can survive long enough to help. thanks for the heads up on the benefits and risks of various methods.

Your Flame hawk will munch down on peps. I had to remove mine. I hated to do it but the aiptasia had to go.

 

[scubabum1983]

file fish, i tried everything for years. filefish killed all of them in two tanks i had. and they look cool.