Aiptasia Disappeared or Shrunk?!

kenjung · Mar 9, 2017

Randy Holmes-Farley said:
My Chelmon marginalis (a type of copperband butterfly) consumed a massive infestation of aiptasia, but it took a while.

Yes I got the cousin Chelmon Muelleri he was a gift to my tank. I paid for him but worth every penny took care of feature duster, Aiptasia and going after unwanted zoa. He's always active looking to eat and very hardy, tangs does not stress him out.

NeuroticAquatics · Mar 9, 2017

Could it be stray voltage? I did not feel anything poking my hand in the sump or tank, but just noticed that a little UV filter that I had in my sump was not pushing water. I went to pull it out, grabbed it and about half way out got a little jolt. Not like live wire from a ceiling fan jolt (don't ask) but a strong tingle.

jason2459 · Mar 9, 2017

Yes, stray voltage can be bad for the tanks inhabitants especially with a grounding probe. Do you not have a gfci?

NeuroticAquatics · Mar 9, 2017

No GFCI direct to the tank. If there was stray voltage, should have I felt it as soon as my hand touched the water? I've pulled corals, put in nori, etc over the last few days. Didn't feel anything until I got the UV filter about half way out of the water.

NeuroticAquatics · Mar 11, 2017

Well, whatever it is, it has decimated all the corals I had in here. The fish appear fine, but all corals and aiptasia are gone. Parameters still seem fine and fragged corals that were transferred into my reef appear to be fine and/or bouncing back (in the case of the closed zoas). It's got to be a water chemistry issue (I think at least) but nothing is different than before. Same RODI unit since Xmas, same salt, etc. I'm not sure what/how but maybe a contaminant got in somehow? Any suggestions on what to run if it was something like that???

jason2459 · Mar 11, 2017

Watch your ammonia. A couple years ago I had some mold/mildew cleaners get into my sump and wiped out all corals and any other invert that wasn't buried away. This spike ammonia and unfortunately I was away out of town. Many fish ended up dieing as well.

NeuroticAquatics · Mar 23, 2017

Not sure if anyone is following along, but some strangeness still lurks. It pretty much looked like everything coral was dead. I looked yesterday and the meteor shower almost looks like there is some purple on the body. No orange polyps coming out, but looks like it could be alive/bouncing back. One of the montiporas near that looks like it has a faint green on parts, where it looked like skeleton before. We shall see how that goes.

Another odd observation was that I looked at my chaeto in my sump/refugium. The entire mass (probably about 14" across) was covered in what kinda looked like a brown algae and it was "hard". Almost like if you took plasti-coat and sprayed the entire top. I trimmed that all off, but have no idea what that was or what could have caused that.

Still zero signs of aiptasia, but I'm guessing they are somewhere lurking...

NeuroticAquatics · Mar 23, 2017

Here are pics from about a week ago. Hollywood Stunner looks much worse, but still has a few green spots. The montipora that looks purple here was green before (the purple is from lights). That's the one that has a faint green tint to parts again.

thatmanMIKEson · Mar 3, 2024

NeuroticAquatics said:
Here are pics from about a week ago. Hollywood Stunner looks much worse, but still has a few green spots. The montipora that looks purple here was green before (the purple is from lights). That's the one that has a faint green tint to parts again.