Aptasia help!

Chiefmaster30 · May 15, 2017

What does everyone do about aptasia? I've been in the hobby for almost 2 yrs. occasionally I've had or seen 1 or 2 here and there and I've been injecting them with lemon juice but lately I've been noticing a lot more of them. There are 4 or 5 that I no of right now in my dt that I can't get to to inject without rearranging half my tank. Any suggestions??

Mal11224 · May 15, 2017

You may need to get a file fish. They eat aiptasia. I would try my best to use aiptasia x if you can manage it.

H@rry · May 16, 2017

I've had real good luck with Klien's Butterfly fish. All my aptasia was gone after 3 or 4 weeks. They will pick at corals but it does not seem to hurt them. They may be picking something off of them but not eating the coral itself. They may eat some soft coral but I can't say for sure as I don't keep softies.

ngoodermuth · May 16, 2017

What about reef putty or superglue? Can you get close enough to their "holes" to plug/cover them up?

Tahoe61 · May 16, 2017

I use Peppermint shrimp almost exclusively. For the last 2 years every time aiptasia pop up I add one or two peppermint shrimp within a week or two all aiptasia are taken care of. Here a peppermint shrimp cost 8 bucks, eventually my Royal Gramma eats the shrimp. In the past I have had peppermint shrimp bother LPS and eat maxi-mini anemones, but because the Royal Gramma is in the tank now they spend very little time out and about. The other issue with shrimp is that the aiptasia are not eradicated, this is probably true with fish that eat aiptasia. Once the fish or aiptasia eathing shrimp is removed aiptasia do begin to pop up again because small pieces of tissue are left to regenerate. Long story short for the money spent versus the headache of aiptasia treatment peppermint shrimp works for me.

Ross V · May 16, 2017

In the past I have used a majano wand to zap them it works well , however sometimes depending where the aiptasia are in the rock work they are hard to get at.

Joe's Coral Reef · May 16, 2017

I've lived with asptasia in my current tank for 4 years. I've tried joes juice and 3 different times with berghia nudibranchs. The berghia will eliminate them, but after 6 months they always come back. It odd after the berghia appear to eliminate them all, the asptasia come back with a vengeance. I've heard peppermints will take them out, but never attempted them for the fear the peps would turn to my Frogspawn after. If it was me, I'd remove the rock and try digging the rock around them, without touching the sucker. I've learned Aptasia is one resilient little creature that's for sure, it's like the cockroach of the reef tank.

thunderdood · May 16, 2017

What I've done is hit them with Joe's Juice and let it sit for 10 minutes or so then take the rock out and pick off the Apitasia with tweezers because the base of it is still on the rock and will grow back. Or taking a lighter and burning them off works as well. This process has worked for my tank. It's been about 4 years since I've seen an Apitasia in my tank.

John Gemmel · May 16, 2017

+1 on couple peppermint shrimp two keep my tank super clean of them.

Chiefmaster30 · May 16, 2017

ngoodermuth said:
What about reef putty or superglue? Can you get close enough to their "holes" to plug/cover them up?

I'll tri this method, I think maybe I can reach the hole with putty!

Chiefmaster30 · May 16, 2017

Tahoe61 said:
I use Peppermint shrimp almost exclusively. For the last 2 years every time aiptasia pop up I add one or two peppermint shrimp within a week or two all aiptasia are taken care of. Here a peppermint shrimp cost 8 bucks, eventually my Royal Gramma eats the shrimp. In the past I have had peppermint shrimp bother LPS and eat maxi-mini anemones, but because the Royal Gramma is in the tank now they spend very little time out and about. The other issue with shrimp is that the aiptasia are not eradicated, this is probably true with fish that eat aiptasia. Once the fish or aiptasia eathing shrimp is removed aiptasia do begin to pop up again because small pieces of tissue are left to regenerate. Long story short for the money spent versus the headache of aiptasia treatment peppermint shrimp works for me.

I'll also try the peppermint shrimp method! But.. I have a royal gramma also. I currently have a coral banded shrimp and a blood red fire shrimp. Apparently they must not eat aptasia but I can say my royal gramma don't bother them.

Osteoclast · May 17, 2017

Agree with Harry. You need a predator. Butterfly's are a great option. Have had a Klein's, Burgess, and now Tinker's. All are good with SPS and LPS. Your aptasia will be devoured rapidly.

I have tried the local and topical methods. The wand doesn't work well at all in my experience. I purchased one and it was a waste of money.

Chiefmaster30 · May 17, 2017

I have a lot of soft coral and lps. Id be scared that a Klein Butterfly might eat my coral. But then again, aptasia overtaking my tank pretty rapidly lately could take out my entire tank also.

LbulletM · May 17, 2017

+1 on Aiptasia X. If you follow the instructions, it works.

rblair · Jun 7, 2017

I was given a small tank because it had so much aptasia in the rock. The previous owner tried aptasia X but he must have done something wrong because he said he ended up with 3 times as many. I tried a kleins butterfly and peppermint shrimp but they only ate the small ones. I moved the butterfly to a different tank, it started eating my soft corals, he didn't tell me there was a pistol shrimp in there and it killed the peppermint shrimp.

Then i read about using a syringe and boiling water and directing it into the hole where the aptasia was. That worked no matter how large they were. I killed 5 or 6 a day (there were a LOT of them) for about 2 months but finally got it clean. Its been clean now for almost 8 months.