laser pest removal

J

joshPensacola

New member
I have seen a couple YouTube videos of people zapping aiptasia with lasers. In the videos death look likely for the aiptasia. However, do they come back? Is there enough left of them to make a comeback afterwards? I have a couple mojano that live in a birds nest colony that I would love to eradicate. Does this laser also work on pest algae, crabs, worms ect.
 
The apitasia in my tank grew back after laser treatment, kalk past treatment. I just spent $50 bucks on a copperband butterfly on saturday that was garunteed to eat aiptasia. After one day (sunday) - the ones I could see have disappeared.
 
Many of mine I can't kalk due to their location and I am nervous about adding butterfly's. I have a lot of nice coral that I am afraid to have eaten or picked at.
 
I have an Arctic 1.4W class 4 laser, and used it a couple of times to burn apitasia. Lasers of this magnitude are line of sight weapons, and it takes several minutes to fully burn the anemone. They are super dangerous, I had a damsel swim through the beam, and the beam blinded it on one side. You get a lot of laser light scatter, and you must wear laser specific eye protection and banish pets, kids, and spouses from the area until you're finished.

The anemones I fried didn't come back. The damsel wasn't the same either. They're pretty dangerous and I don't plan on using it again
 
There are quite a few threads on this topic. IMO the dangers outweigh the benefits. Many reported that the fish stayed away from the laser but obviously that isn't always the case. Many also reported that the pest species grew back.
 
Ive used a hypodermic needle filled with lemon juice. Insert needle into pest anemone, inject a little of the lemon juice into the unfortunate victim. They usually die in a day or two.
 
FYI - my mature copperband butterfly hasn't touch anything but aiptasia (and maybe some feather dusters).

Peppermint shrimp I was told by the LFS is hit or miss depending on which sub-species you get. There are 4 seperate sub-species which all look very similar if not exactly the same. Only one of the sub-species will eat aiptasia.

http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Biological+control+of+aquarium+pest+anemone+Aiptasia+pallida+verrill...-a0118543938

A study was conducted to quantify the ability of two peppermint shrimp in controlling A. pallida, Lysmata Sp. (Haiti variety) tended to have a higher consumption rate of sea anemone than Lysmata sp. (Florida Gulf Coast variety).
Click to expand...
 
What about a Majano Wand? I have a few Aiptasia in my tank that I just can't kill. I've tried Kalk Paste, Lemon Juice and Aiptasia-X and I either can't get to them, or they come back after a few weeks. I've been considering buying one of the wands, but they seem expensive to try and kill three Aiptasia.
 
joshPensacola said:
I have seen a couple YouTube videos of people zapping aiptasia with lasers. In the videos death look likely for the aiptasia. However, do they come back? Is there enough left of them to make a comeback afterwards? I have a couple mojano that live in a birds nest colony that I would love to eradicate. Does this laser also work on pest algae, crabs, worms ect.
Click to expand...

The lasers work if they are powerful enough, with that said you can only use them for a few seconds or you heat the water up, if you hit one of your fish with the laser it wouldn't be good and you could potentially blind a fish. Oh and of course yourself if your not wearing the proper eye protection
 
I'm all for peppermint shrimp. When I fist put my BTA in the tank my peppermint's went at him (Aiptasia IS an anemone after all). A few stings later and they got the point and now don't bother him. That being said, so far I have 0 aiptasia issues in my tank. :)
 
If you are going to try peppermint shrimp you need to feed the tank very sparingly. If your tank is well fed the shrimp won't even touch the anems, they have to want to eat it and that starts by them being hungry
 
+1 for lemon or lime juice. turn off circulation when you do this so the juice stays concentrated longer.

I had peppermint shrimp that wouldn't touch them so i believe only certain subspecies or individuals will go after mojanos
 
I bought a ton of peppermint shrimp and a filefish, no more aiptasia. Although I never saw either eating the aiptasia, it's gone now. As far as the laser goes, I know my LFS uses it to zap aiptasia, you can literally watch the aiptasia melt and dwindle away. Don't really know about whether or not they come back in the same spot or not.
 
My peppermint went after my bubble anemone when I first put him in the tank. Hey, he's a big aiptasia. Haha
Then he stung them and they backed off. Lol
 
Spyderturbo007 said:
What about a Majano Wand? I have a few Aiptasia in my tank that I just can't kill. I've tried Kalk Paste, Lemon Juice and Aiptasia-X and I either can't get to them, or they come back after a few weeks. I've been considering buying one of the wands, but they seem expensive to try and kill three Aiptasia.
Click to expand...

There's a few guides on here for making one yourself pretty cheap, but I've heard they usually come back from that as well. I tried everything and mine still exploded in numbers, ended up getting berghia which are finally killing them off.
 
Has anyone tried using a laser to kill Hydroids? They are taking over my tank, they are kind of hard to kill.

Jason
 
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