Berghia
Berghia
Berghias are sea slugs. Specifically, if I spell it right, Berghia verricicones. They eat only aiptasia anemones. We have a 55 gal that had an explosion of aiptasias that have gotten large and menacing to our fish. The can sting, as I understand it, and can even catch a smaller fish if they get big enough. We have a pygmy flame angel that is just about the right size for one of the bigger aiptasias. So we had to find a solution. We found that Joe's Juice helps slow the aiptasias down, bright light helps, and changing the PH, but generally the more stressed the aiptasias are, the more they clone themselves. Peppermint shrimp work, but they consider aiptasias a secondary food source. The problem is that we got three Berghia, which are hermaphroditic, and they are dedicated to munching aiptasias and reproducing. So we have had a population explosion. We have a baby Berghia 5 gal tank where we were rotating rocks, but they became homes for babies. We started a 10 gal. aiptasia tank to raise food, but it is not yet developed. We would like to find people with aiptasia problems who need Berghia, just to find them homes.
I have learned that they live about 8 months (full grown ones are about 1 1/2" long). We are in the process of setting up a 180 gal tank and have not moved our fish in yet. The Berghia lay egg coils, often on the glass sides. I learned that our dragon wrasse or a peppermint shrimp would eat the eggs while foraging. So we may be able to dwindle our population. But our dragon wrasse would eat the peppermint shrimp, so Berghias were our best solution: ha!
One Berghia generally will not reproduce, although it can, and would clean a small aiptasia problem if it enough food (aiptasias) for it's lifetime. Two will definately lead to the same population explosion we had.
Bristleworms also eat the eggs, but we separated several egg coils and the slugs survived. Big mistake. Better to let nature take its course. If I cannot find homes, they will probably just die eventually for lack of food if the aiptasias get eaten up. However we have seeded the new tank with aiptasias and there is much more rock, so if we get the wrasse in there, perhaps it can be brought under control.
I am not interested necessarily in selling them, but would be interested in a trade if possible, if anyone has something our tank could support.
They are a very effective aiptasia control and kind of cute in their sea slug way! These are white, and their serrata turn brown when they eat the brown aiptasias. Some aiptasias have blue or green rings and when the Berghia eat them the Berghia take on a blue or green hue.
Also, we have noticed that the mature ones don't reproduce as much, they seem to slow way down, and they don't eat as voraciously as the juveniles.
That's all I know. They're reasonably hearty once in the tank, operate at night, and need good water.
Thanks,
Kathy
