mixed corals with uninvited growth

[Brisk]

Yes apistaisa. So I was fortunate enough to receive a handful of mixed corals from a friend who was shutting down his tank... which includes colt coral, Xenia, green star polyps, candy cane (trumpet), couple mushrooms, and a torch coral. However he had long lost interest in his tank and "let it go" which means green hair algae, red slime algae, and apistaisa is taking over.

After removing as much as possible by hand I placed everything into a QT. Daily I remove and inspect and continue to remove apistaisa by hand or with a toothbrush, tweezers, toothpick, etc, then rinse and return to QT.

Is there anything else I can do? It seems like a never ending battle and I'd like to put these beautiful corals in my display tank.

Thanks for your replies.

 

[Dkuhlmann]

There are several critters that will eat aiptasia, many are hit or miss and depends on your DT size if you can keep some of them or not. The few that are not tank size dependent are Berghia nudibranch's and peppermint shrimp. The Berghia are great little creatures albeit a bit expensive, and once they have your aiptasia under control they will die off. Peppermint shrimp can be hit or miss but can be kept after the masses of aiptasia have been consumed because they will also eat any prepared foods you feed your fish.

There are a few fish that you can get an many are hit or miss as well and some will eat corals. The list includes:
Raccoon Butterfly
Copperband Butterfly
Matted File Fish
Yellow tangs have been known to eat them as well as a few other fish but these are the most common.

I got a Matted file fish and it took a few weeks before it started eating them but has done a pretty good job so far. Recently I see two or three aiptasia and it's a matter of time before he eats them. I've not seen my MFF eating or pecking on any corals yet so I can't say for sure they are completely coral safe. But again so far I'm not worried.

I just saw that ORA is now producing the Aiptasia Eating File fish which is the Matted file fish. There is a thread on it in one of the forums just don't remember which one. But I'm sure you can Google ORA Aiptasia eating file fish and you will find them.

Of course you can do the injecting of different things that will kill them as well but you may never beat them in this manner.

Hope this has helped you

 

[Brisk]

lots of good info, thanks for the reply.

my goal is to be apistaisa free being moving any piece to my display tank (90 gal)