For about a year I have been fighting a losing battle against aptasia.
I keep it from becoming a plague but cant get rid of same for any extended period of time.
My weekly routine consists of killing off visable anemones with a thick mixture of Kalkwasser. It works well -- all treated buggers bite the dust. But there are obviously some left as a week later I find some more to kill off (different ones) . etc etc etc. month after month.
So I bought a copper band butterfly (very attractive fish) which actually did the job and no visable apt were seen for 3 weeks -- however, w/o the apt, the CBB eventually starved to death (I tried feeding it MANY types of foods).
Went back to the kalk.
Now I am trying a mottled filefish. I've been told that they may take a few weeks before they go after the apt. So far, no luck (just finished getting my hand out of the tank kalking the latest groups of apt). Its eating something as it does not look emaciated at all.
Do you think it will ever eat them? What has been your experience with using a filefish to control aptasia?
(p.s.: To keep chemistry WNL, I have found that adding some Mg and strontium helps the corals utilize the extra Ca. I only add approx 1/2 tsp of Kalk per treatment). pH stays at about 8.2.
Even if I could afford nutibrancks, they would not be compatible with my fish --> powder brown tang, blue head wrasse, 6 line wrasse, gold band maroon clown, pj cardinal, blue green chromis, and a coral beauty angel, all of which eat inverts.
I keep it from becoming a plague but cant get rid of same for any extended period of time.
My weekly routine consists of killing off visable anemones with a thick mixture of Kalkwasser. It works well -- all treated buggers bite the dust. But there are obviously some left as a week later I find some more to kill off (different ones) . etc etc etc. month after month.
So I bought a copper band butterfly (very attractive fish) which actually did the job and no visable apt were seen for 3 weeks -- however, w/o the apt, the CBB eventually starved to death (I tried feeding it MANY types of foods).
Went back to the kalk.
Now I am trying a mottled filefish. I've been told that they may take a few weeks before they go after the apt. So far, no luck (just finished getting my hand out of the tank kalking the latest groups of apt). Its eating something as it does not look emaciated at all.
Do you think it will ever eat them? What has been your experience with using a filefish to control aptasia?
(p.s.: To keep chemistry WNL, I have found that adding some Mg and strontium helps the corals utilize the extra Ca. I only add approx 1/2 tsp of Kalk per treatment). pH stays at about 8.2.
Even if I could afford nutibrancks, they would not be compatible with my fish --> powder brown tang, blue head wrasse, 6 line wrasse, gold band maroon clown, pj cardinal, blue green chromis, and a coral beauty angel, all of which eat inverts.