Well Cured Live Rock and Aptasia!! Quick Question!

[balticbsc3]

Hello Everyone! Today I recieved a friends tank and with it about 50 lbs of well established live rock, a few unidentified leather corals, and a mated pair of yellow stripe maroon clowns. My girlfriend is setting up a 29 BioCube this week and I will hopefully be stocking it with some of this rock and will have no problem finding a place for the rest of it in one of my two tanks. My problem is this, this rock has aptasia. I (hopefully) killed six tonight with Joe's Juice and I know that my buddy has had to kill them off before. I really do not want to introduce an aptasia infestation into either of my tanks or the new BioCube. I am unsure of the best way to take care of these before dispersing this rock between the tanks. I know that I can use Joe's Juice or the Pepper, Tobasco, and Pickling Lime recipe to take care of the big ones and peppermint shrimp to eat the small ones, but will that be effective enough. I don't want to do this, but I am contemplating cutting the leathers off the rock, gluing them to rock in my other tanks, and just letting all of the rock soak in some fresh water for a few days. I know this will kill EVERYTHING, but I would just reseed it with some established rock from one of my tanks and cure it again. Let me know what you guys think I should do. Sorry this was so long.

 

[Rosseau]

Killing and re-curing the rock seems like a lot of work to me, a lot of time anyways. I had great success with peppermint's in my nano eating lots of aip's, 1 shrimp ate at least 4 in 2 weeks, they weren't tiny either. This is in a 10G, so i'll let someone else throw in their 2 cents about a bigger tank - or aiptasia horror stories. Have any pics?

 

[gdm42001]

I had a nasty infestation, installed a dozen peppermint shrimp.
They are all gone, big ones, little ones no problem.
but I would leave the live rock in the other tank until they have been eaten.

 

[balticbsc3]

Thanks for the replies! I don't have any pics of anything at this time. Anybody else have an opinion?

 

[BlakDuc]

I have used the Kalk nuke technique many times. It is a lot of work, but they just seem to melt away. I am not too sure about the Tabasco or pickling lime, do you really know every ingredient in these and do you really want to introduce it to your system? In the larger tank, I would go with a Copperband B/F, they are great fish if you can get a healthy one. Problem is, a lot of them dont make it past a week. Good luck.

 

[mr.maroonsalty]

Pickling lime=Calcium oxide=Kalk

 

[sperry]

Put the rock in a dark container for a couple of weeks.

 

[ghostman]

I have had success with the kalk method as well as with peppermint shrimp. I definitely would not cut the leathers off and try to glue them. A freshwater soak will kill everything, so you may as well buy dry baserock since you are losing the live component. Don't worry about a few aptasia surviving, get some shrimp, use the joes juice and don't let them get out of hand. HTH

 

[mr.maroonsalty]

Peppermint shrimp work, but don't expect to wake up with the nems gone. Using Kalk, which Joe's is, works with diligence- paste them wait a bit, then pick or syphon out and expect to do it more than once or twice to get them all. Some polyps bail right off when the reaction hits the, but most are stubborn, and its easier to get them off out of the tank. I think a combination shrimp/manual removal works well. I've seen mentioned the shrimp would go hungry with the aptasia gone; I've found the opposite true and they prefer food. Maybe being so bold as to feed the nems when the lights go out would encourage the shrimp to eat them. If the rock is great looking its worth taking time getting rid of them w/o "cooking" it. Its still likely you won't get them all, but you'll have the tools to keep them in check. There are worst afflictions for reef tanks.
btw pickling lime aka Mrs. Wages (food grade lime) = Calcium oxide/hydroxide= Kalkwasser (trans. lime water);
also $=Calcium hydroxide=$$$, get what I'm saying.