Aiptasia Squad - Here's my plan!

[CasperOe]

So, it happened! The tank is infested and the dreaded aiptasia is taking off!

It so happens that I have wanted to add a couple of fish for a while and here's what I'm planning to add:

- Pearl Scale Butterfly
- Molly Miller Blenny
- Aiptasia eating file fish

The idea is that if one of them don't do a good job, chances are that another one will!

Any other fish suggestions apart from the Copperband?

 

[c4haskett]

I heard Kliens Blue Head Butterfly is the aptaisa king.

Butterflyfish : Klein's Blue Head Butterfly

Buy Online saltwater fish. healthy hand selected Quarantined saltwater fish, Quality UPS shipping. Buy Now Sale.

www.marinefishez.com

 

[CasperOe]

I heard Kliens Blue Head Butterfly is the aptaisa king.

Butterflyfish : Klein's Blue Head Butterfly

Buy Online saltwater fish. healthy hand selected Quarantined saltwater fish, Quality UPS shipping. Buy Now Sale.

www.marinefishez.com

Noted! will have a look at this guy as well! Thanks

 

[dangles]

Following! What little I've heard about the Molly Miller has been great, but it seems to be an under-utilized option. I'd love to hear how it does! Although it might be hard to figure out who's doing their job and who's sitting on their anus!

 

[CasperOe]

Following! What little I've heard about the Molly Miller has been great, but it seems to be an under-utilized option. I'd love to hear how it does! Although it might be hard to figure out who's doing their job and who's sitting on their anus!

Gotta be perfectly honest with you here- right now I don't really care which one works as long as my issue goes away

Very unhelpful and unscientific method, I know

 

[brandon429]

I give this option an 8% chance of killing your other fish via disease import from skipping all preps. I wouldn't say that to rain on plans Casper/ promise/ it's directly an aggregate risk guess from several threads where that's happened plus Jay's biosecurity article directly warning about it

We could remove those anems in one or two passes with a common flathead screwdriver and a small tap hammer, with no risk

Biosecurity

A short introduction to aquarium biosecurity

www.reef2reef.com

 

[DJF]

Peppermint shrimp, berghia nudibranchs, file fish.

 

[brandon429]

Literally no searching is being done for this prep, that's just what disease needs to wipe a system

It took me two seconds on a search to find several tanks where berghia, peps and file fish didn't work. Only takes one exposure, if you get uro the entire tank has to be taken down and sterilized

This thread is the exact reason we take action on anemone #1 vs anything involving a secondary hope after they spread or during the spread

A primary closing action that works on anemone #1 is the tool box trick i mentioned. It will remove the anemone plus the pedal tissue they regrow from and it must be done outside the tank: surgically outside. You'd lift out a rock, fix it, then put it back

Read in that article where adding fish to control outbreaks is a total risk

 

[Sticker shock]

Berghia, Aiptasia-x and manual removal took care of a massive infestation for me. I wanted to go the fish route, but was worried about disease as brandon429 mentioned

 

[DJF]

Peppermints and berghia work for me. Our community has a file fish that makes its rounds. Research enough for me to provide my response. Do peppermints always work? No- do any of the suggestions work 100%? No

 

[Gill the 3rd]

I had a good luck with a file fish on 2 of my tanks that had aptasia. My 20 gal tank was covered in it and a file fish took care of it. My 300 gallon started to have some so I moved him to that tank and its all gone now. They are also easy to keep and feed once the aptasia is gone.

 

[brandon429]

Either way we slice it, a published article from post #6 and eighty search returns from a brief key word search shows this plan isn't a good one. The tool box trick works always and doesn't transmit disease. Aiptasia are/ were easy to beat, the key is never listen to the masses on the matter, they'll post matter of factly without any work threads and they'll omit all warning that come from loss experience.

 

[Gill the 3rd]

Either way we slice it, a published article from post #6 and eighty search returns from a brief key word search shows this plan isn't a good one. The tool box trick works always and doesn't transmit disease. Aiptasia are/ were easy to beat, the key is never listen to the masses on the matter, they'll post matter of factly without any work threads and they'll omit all warning that come from loss experience.

I think everyone agrees you should qt any fish you purchase prior to adding to your tank. The OP asked about fish they could add to their tank to help with his issue and we shared our experiences. Not sure how this turned into a fish disease/loss issue...

 

[Lbrdsoxfan]

I think everyone agrees you should qt any fish you purchase prior to adding to your tank. The OP asked about fish they could add to their tank to help with his issue and we shared our experiences. Not sure how this turned into a fish disease/loss issue...

It happens more than you think....

 

[Lbrdsoxfan]

Klein butterfly works (will nip zoa's & possibly LPS), heinochus works (hasn't nipped so far).

As I've said in other threads, chemical eradication is a bad idea as it will spread, BTDT.

Filefish is a mixed bag as well (zoa's and LPS are on the table). I have one in my sps cube and it's doing great to keep the aiptasia @ bay.

Berghia does work, needs no predators and time. Peppermints do work (need the right variety) and same predator issues as berghia. Large wrasses IME equate both as a no go, as I spent a LOT of money over the summer figuring it out any my largish red coris and melnaurus love shrimp & berghia.

You can see the aips in the pic center of tank. Heinochus & Klein rid of it all within a week.

Before:

After: zoom in! Recent FTS!

 

[brandon429]

In all fairness it's not like searching will show 57 jobs done the right way via rock divots, nobody will listen except pico reefers

Aiptasia issues are the exclusive domain of big tanks for two reasons: accessibility and willingness to absolutely not entertain uninvited guests. That's harder in big tanks

But still attainable

The will must be upscaled

When I'm offering a reef trick its not haphazard it's coming from jobs done in chat

My worst scenario would be someone trying the method stated, with pics and true intent to win in place, then reporting back later that it didn't work

all procedural recommends are factored against that.

In order to muster the will to beat anemones, I like to pretend someone is offering a bounty to the owner of fifty thousand dollars paid for a win, but the catch is you only have one pass + you're not allowed to discard rock, actually have to keep it all. No second rounds... one pass kill is the deal

If that were my task I'd go into the garage and get a medium sized flathead. I would sharpen the edge

Polish it all off clean

Then I'd dig up under each offender with ease, and take some land they hitched in on

Divots

Then plant corals in the holes/ collect my Hawaii dive fund winnings

 

[Doctorgori]

I have 4 tanks, no aptasia …
persistent manual methods using F Aptasia along with peppermint shrimp worked for me….
I don’t doubt the testimony of others where the shrimp failed however

 

[Lbrdsoxfan]

In all fairness it's not like searching will show 57 jobs done the right way via rock divots, nobody will listen except pico reefers

Aiptasia issues are the exclusive domain of big tanks for two reasons: accessibility and willingness to absolutely not entertain uninvited guests. That's harder in big tanks

But still attainable

The will must be upscaled

Pulling 100+ pounds of rock to divot out ain't gonna work, especially in my case. Half of my rock is one large piece. Got to work to scale.

Pico and nano reef are a different monster. Removing rock can and does work in that case.

 

[Reefbuds]

I had quite the infestation months back. I got 10 Berghia nudibranches. It took a bit of time but within a couple months I noticed the aptasia were just disappearing. After about the 3 month mark they were completely eradicated. Worked very well for me and cost me about 100 bucks.

 

[Lbrdsoxfan]

I have 4 tanks, no aptasia …
persistent manual methods using F Aptasia along with peppermint shrimp worked for me….
I don’t doubt the testimony of others where the shrimp failed however

My shrimp were a expensive snack.