peppermint shrimp or berghia?

[SPotter]

So my frag tank has had an outbreak of aiptasia in and currently have about 10-12 of them. a couple of have made homes on some of my frags and the rest are on the bottom of the tank. I know there are other methods like blasting them with kalk or lime juice but I am wondering which is better...berghia or pm shrimp? My plan for the ones on the surface of the tank is to drain the contents of the tank and carefully scrape them off. I really need to get the frags taken care of before these pests find their way into my dt.

 

[Mikesville510]

Berghias are the best bet. Peppermint shrimps are fragile and spend most of the day hidden between rocks. I think only peppermint shrimps that haven't eaten pellet food will go after aiptasia.

 

[SPotter]

Great! thanks for the input!

Steve

 

[Rabidgoose]

I'll say berghias if you have someone to pass them along to when your done with them. You don't have much of a problem (good thing) so when the aps are gone the berghia will starve. I would be tempted to just put a couple peps in the frag tank and leave them in case you have an outbreak in the future. I have had good luck with peps but they will steal food out of your corals mouth if they get a chance.

chuck

 

[computeaholic]

Berghias for sure. You can also reproduce them if you want. They go for a nice price compared to the effort to breed them. Very effective as well.

 

[SPotter]

none of my lfs have any so I will have to buy some on line and give it a shot.

 

[tinctorus]

I had thesame problem in m 65 gallon reef and I tried berghia "which all 5 of them manged to disappear at 25 bucks a pop"
I tried a dozen peppermint shrimp and they may have eaten a total of 1 aptasia out of 1500 andI was about to get a copperband butterfly until yesterday I decided to take ALL of my live rock out and boil all of it and now there isnt a single aptasia in the tank...So worst case scenario take your coral out and boil everything else in the tank, maybe add 4-5 peppermint and 1-2 berghia to eat the ones on your frags and you should be ok

 

[nivenethan]

1 word. Berghia.

 

[edzup]

I boiled my LR one time but you need to cure your rock after due to all the die off of both good and bad life on and in the rock! I used Aiptasia-X from red sea worked well along with half dozen pepermint shrimp worked well until i got a fish which ate the pep shrimp

 

[burnah]

the peppermints only work if there is very little food in the tank and no predators like wrasses in my experience

 

[Luiz Rocha]

My Berghia completely disappear after I put them in the tank. The peppermint shrimp ignored the Aiptasia and harassed my soft corals instead.

 

[JSeymour]

Peppermints just take time to work. Add a half dozen and wait. It will take months for them to clear a heavily infested tank. Your lfs needs to also be training them for aiptasia removal. We feed ours almost exclusively, aiptasia.

 

[graha321]

Berghias worked great in my tank. They disappeared for around 2 months, but then they exploded and ate all the aiptasia. It was nice because they're so small they get into all the crevices, overflows, sump and eat every last aiptasia.

 

[bymers42]

Peppermints just take time to work. Add a half dozen and wait. It will take months for them to clear a heavily infested tank. Your lfs needs to also be training them for aiptasia removal. We feed ours almost exclusively, aiptasia.

That is great thinking. I wish more LFS's would be thoughtful and helpful like that.

 

[yman32]

How many peppermint shrimp for a 55-75 gallon tank?

How many peppermint shrimp for a 55-75 gallon tank?

And are the P. shrimp ok once the aiptasia are gone?

 

[WhiteShark1]

Peppermint shrimp worked pretty well for me in my 75. I had to get 3 of them because the 1st one I got wasn’t interested in the aiptasia (he disappeared after awhile never to be heard from again). I got another 2 from my LFS and after awhile the majority of my aiptasia was gone (still a few pieces here and there, but I went from having an infestation to having just a few pieces). You can always ask your LFS to drop a piece of aiptasia infested rock into the peppermint tank to see if any of the shrimp will go after it (that’s what I did).

 

[TampaSnooker]

A neat trick for Berghia - leave them in the shipping container for a day or two with a little air inside. Flush the container a couple times with tank water to reduce wastes. If you allow them to lay eggs in the container, you now have 2 generations of Berghia to go after the problem, just in case something eats the adults you bought. Peppermints will eat Berghia, so don't try both. I'm also suspicious that 6 line wrasses are eating them as well - why not, since they eat zoa and monti nudis. Also, it takes a couple generations of Berghia to eliminate Aiptasia. My guess is the babies are better at sneaking around without predators getting them. Berghia are hermaphrodites but cannot reproduce alone. Technically, you only need 2 to get started, provided they can lay eggs before being eaten.

I added 20 to 5 different tanks a few months back. I'm just starting to see an effect on the Aiptasia population, but they are starting to disappear quicker and quicker. The most successful was the last tank where I just added the container with egg masses in it to a refugium that had a few Aiptasia. Not only did the babies eat all the Aiptasia in the refugium, they spilled into the display and ate all the Aiptasia there.

 

[Holyreefer]

Berghias for sure

 

[dagon138]

As far as eating small aptasia, I've had great success with peppermint shrimp.
Usually the next day they're all gone. Which leads me to the the flip-side.
I cannot keep these poor guys alive after. I think they end up getting in fights with my cleaner shrimp, or simply starve. :sad2:

 

[BryanW]

pep shrimps not doing it

pep shrimps not doing it

So, I have a 400 gal reef, now 2 months old. I transferred my live rock from a 180, and bought another 150lbs of fresh live rock. I left the lights out on the new tank after I put LR in, and also added 10 pep shrimp for a month. Now the lights are on, and the peppermints arent keeping up at all with the aiptasia's. I want to put a fish in the tank that will be reef save, but will eat the pepp's, so I can place berghia's in. Any suggestions??