tons of Anemones, what do I do?

S

Strange_Tank

New member
Hello all!
I just want to say first off that I am pretty new to Saltwater tanks so this all is a bit of a learning curve for me.

Here is my current situation.
Yesterday I bought 50 more lbs of live rock for my relatively new tank (6 mo). There were 2 larger pieces and a small 10 lb piece. We looked at the rock in the tank at the store and it seemed there were some coral pieces (very) small growing on 2 of the larger pieces. We were kind of excited about the find, normally the live rock at the store is pretty dead looking. Anyway...when we got the rock home and had it in the tank for about a hour we noticed that it was crawling with anemones. Each rock has about 15-20 of these little guys, they are about the size of a quarter. Looking online at photos I believe they are a type of Tube Anemone. They have about 1/2-1 inch arms and are a solid tan’ish to light brown color. In my reading I found that they can possibly hurt my other fish, is this true?
For I would love to eventually have a anemone to go with my Maroon, we are not quite ready to have 40 of these little buggers.

So suggestions on what I can do with them? Are the sellable? Will they hurt my tank?
Do I need to feed them?


Not sure if it matters but here is what I have in/on the tank:
1 Maroon, 1 Pink Spotted Goby, 1 Niger Trigger, 3 Green Chromes, 7 Turbo Snails
1 Canister Filter (100gph)
1 Back Pack Skimmer
Heater
Power Head
75 Gal Tank
Florescent Fish Lighting (not compacts)
 
Do I need to feed them?
Click to expand...

No most certainly not. You need to exterminate them. They are voracious pests and the scourge of every reefer. They go by the name of aiptasia are ugly looking brutes.


Not sure if it matters but here is what I have in/on the tank:
1 Maroon, 1 Pink Spotted Goby, 1 Niger Trigger, 3 Green Chromes, 7 Turbo Snails
Click to expand...

You may want to add a few peppermint shrimp to that stocking list to eliminate those horrid anemones. 40 or so aiptasia?!! UGGH man that is horrible, they will sting everything in there to pieces if you leave them and they "breed" (more like divide) like rabbits.
 
thanks for the info.....

thanks for the info.....

Oh no...I didn't realize it was this BIG of a problem....

well back to the store I go....

thanks for the info!
 
Before you go, just to make doubly sure, do the little critters look like this?
aiptasia.jpg


or this
Aiptasia_sp2.jpg



If so, back to the shop ASAP.

Glad i could help,

Ciaran.
 
Now they don't quite look like that at all. Let me see if I can find a photo online again of what they look like. Though the legs are much softer and very straight and you can barely see the stem of them.
Just talked to my husband and he said that one of them is moving around the tank from rock to rock.....that probably isn't good.
 
embryoguy...I was thinking the same thing....It was one of the new kids who sold it to me. We asked what they were and he said corals.....kind of makes me mad, now that i have all the info.
 
dont be discouraged. an established member of my local reef club sold me a bag of macro full of apitasia when i was a new in the hobby. atleast you got good info. before your syst. was established. now whenever you buy a coral, look out for it.
 
Take it back to the LFS and talk to a manager. They won't have much of a clientele if they let their employees act that ignorantly.
I wouldn't buy any more live rock from that place, as it's probably all infested with aptasia by now.
 
I fought them for years with numerous methods. The best thing I ever did was to bleach every last piece of liverock, then only add living coral tissue or dried rock. No reef plugs from other's tanks or anything that is wet. Otherwise they can come back. I've seen them come back from a tank that had none for years when the CBB died.
 
I don't know guys.... I've tried peppermint shrimp, with varying results, kalkwasser paste, Joe's Juice, Copperband Butterflies with no results, physical removal, Voo Doo chants and even resorted to getting down on my knees begging them to go away. They always came back without exception.
 
I heard injecting them with boiling water works (or indeed the kalkwasser "poison paste" you mentioned, if your syringe can stand up to the heat! Gotta be fast i guess. How is it the beautiful specimins of anemones we will do anything to keep healthy and living tend to take so much effort, then aiptasia, well they'd bloody well live in acid those things. Im with taking back the LR. More trouble than its worth starting an extermination mission and then ending up with a Copper banded butterfly or Peppermint shrimp you may not want in the long-term. Plus CBB are fairly shaky specimins at best, need a very stable tank IMHO.

A long FW dip might destroy the aiptasia. Can never be sure though, plus it will kill your whole LR.
 
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