Aptasia - when do you quit

I got a new matted file fish today. He came in this morning .. i got him acclimated temp and salinity to my QT .. i need to keep him under observation for a while. liveaquaria is usually good but Ive never had one come in with 1.019 salinity before from them. That's a trigger for me to QT for real. So .. the wait continues while these aptazholes continue to propagate my tank
 
Well I am with you on this one except I have a double whammy in my tank. It is infested with colonial hydroids and aiptasia. I don't know what I did to win this lottery but I wish it would go away.
I have tried just about everything for the aiptasia but now decided I am going after the hydroids first. Once they are gone, I will be ordering an army of berghia which will hopefully work now that I no longer have a wrasse in my tank.
Best of luck to you.
 
I've never uploaded a picture here so lets see what happens.
That should be of one of my lovely rocks near the bottom of the tank that is covered in both hydroids and aiptasia.

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Once I get back from vacation I am going to remove my inverts to another tank I just set up and treat with the stuff that is supposed to take care of the hydroids (I forget the name). Then once I have won that battle, in come an army of berghia.
That's the plan anyway and I am going to do a thread about the entire process. I just have to wait a couple more weeks to get started.
 
My orange spotted filefish has been very effective on the aptasia. I had them all over the rock and now I'm down to one medium one and this beast! He tried eating it once but it looks like it stung him and he hasn't been back since!! I'll have to figure out something else with that one..
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Berghia were 100% effective for me, and it's a little amazing to hear folks say they were ineffective. Of all the modes and predators listed in this thread, Berghia are the only obligate predators. Berghia are precision marksmen. Everything else is a shotgun-in-the-dark approach.

I will say this. I purchased 8 Berghia from a well-known, semi-local (to me) source. I put them in a 5-gallon aquarium with a bunch of aiptasia harvested from my display. I started by feeding them 10-12 aiptasia per day. They started laying eggs within a couple of days, and after a month I had so many Berghia I could not count them nor harvest enough aiptasia to keep them fed. There were literally dozens of them of all sizes. I started putting them into the display and the sump, keeping the smallest ones in the 5g aquarium to feed. At one point I seriously considered buying aiptasia cultures to keep them alive, but my LFS helped out by giving me a few pieces of badly-infested live rock. At the end of 2-1/2 months since my purchase of the original 8, I had sold about 100 to my LFS and my entire system was aiptasia free. That was about 12 years ago, and I have never seen another aiptasia since.

Here, in my opinion, are the keys. Berghia are pretty sturdy little guys once they establish themselves in your tank. However, they need time to establish themselves. They are very prone to getting blown around by high flows, and are easily sucked into powerheads and overflows. You must reduce your flow in order to give them a chance. Your corals will not disintegrate from this. I turned off all flow except for the sump return pump, and even that I turned down about 50% for the first 2-3 days after adding them. Some other animals will prey on the Berghia. They are a nice little snack to many fish, shrimp, crabs, and other critters. This includes the peppermint shrimps that somebody convinced you would eat all of your aiptasia but never even gave the stuff a second glance. You should add the Berghia to the tank during dark periods so that they are not immediately seen as food to those other predators. They can be eaten and stung by corals (even by aiptasia), and they have a very methodical approach to dinner time. When you put them into the tank, place them on the barest, safest bit of rock you can find. It matters not at all if there is not an aiptasia in sight of them. They will cruise off into recesses in the rockwork, and will quickly find the aiptasia.

If I was confronted with an aiptasia infestation again, there is no question that I would do exactly the same thing as before. 100% effective, and a completely permanent solution. It was also easy, and fascinating to watch them, as well as to observe their life cycle.
 
I had the same issue, aiptasia and bubble algae everywhere. I removed most of the rocks that were heavily infested. Bought 4 peppermint shrimp, 95% it’s gone in 2 weeks
 
Berghia were 100% effective for me, and it's a little amazing to hear folks say they were ineffective. Of all the modes and predators listed in this thread, Berghia are the only obligate predators. Berghia are precision marksmen. Everything else is a shotgun-in-the-dark approach.

I will say this. I purchased 8 Berghia from a well-known, semi-local (to me) source. I put them in a 5-gallon aquarium with a bunch of aiptasia harvested from my display. I started by feeding them 10-12 aiptasia per day. They started laying eggs within a couple of days, and after a month I had so many Berghia I could not count them nor harvest enough aiptasia to keep them fed. There were literally dozens of them of all sizes. I started putting them into the display and the sump, keeping the smallest ones in the 5g aquarium to feed. At one point I seriously considered buying aiptasia cultures to keep them alive, but my LFS helped out by giving me a few pieces of badly-infested live rock. At the end of 2-1/2 months since my purchase of the original 8, I had sold about 100 to my LFS and my entire system was aiptasia free. That was about 12 years ago, and I have never seen another aiptasia since.

Here, in my opinion, are the keys. Berghia are pretty sturdy little guys once they establish themselves in your tank. However, they need time to establish themselves. They are very prone to getting blown around by high flows, and are easily sucked into powerheads and overflows. You must reduce your flow in order to give them a chance. Your corals will not disintegrate from this. I turned off all flow except for the sump return pump, and even that I turned down about 50% for the first 2-3 days after adding them. Some other animals will prey on the Berghia. They are a nice little snack to many fish, shrimp, crabs, and other critters. This includes the peppermint shrimps that somebody convinced you would eat all of your aiptasia but never even gave the stuff a second glance. You should add the Berghia to the tank during dark periods so that they are not immediately seen as food to those other predators. They can be eaten and stung by corals (even by aiptasia), and they have a very methodical approach to dinner time. When you put them into the tank, place them on the barest, safest bit of rock you can find. It matters not at all if there is not an aiptasia in sight of them. They will cruise off into recesses in the rockwork, and will quickly find the aiptasia.

If I was confronted with an aiptasia infestation again, there is no question that I would do exactly the same thing as before. 100% effective, and a completely permanent solution. It was also easy, and fascinating to watch them, as well as to observe their life cycle.

Let’s assume this is the next step. I still have a leopard wrasse and now a peppermint. Do I just somehow capture these things in a 250g system to give the berghias a chance?
 
Let’s assume this is the next step. I still have a leopard wrasse and now a peppermint. Do I just somehow capture these things in a 250g system to give the berghias a chance?

IMO, that would be the ideal thing to do. But with a large tank, you're going to want to release quite a few Berghia to give yourself a jump start and to give them the best chance. I'd suggest the breeding tank first, same as I did. That buys you at least a couple of weeks to catch or temporarily cordon off the potential predators. Peppermint shrimp, being naturally curious critters, are pretty easy to trap even in a large volume tank. The wrasse is likely to be very tough to catch, so I would try to trap it as well.
 
IMO, that would be the ideal thing to do.
I will have to keep this as an option. Thanks for the insight. In retrospect, maybe I should have just kept with the berghias but after two attempts over the course of six months and $750 down the tube, I had to pass and move on to a different attack.
 
Great idea. Once I get rid of the hydroids I can put my inverts back in my tank and start the berghia in the tank I set up to temporarily home the inverts. Put in a rock or two covered in aiptasia and give them a head start.
 
I will have to keep this as an option. Thanks for the insight. In retrospect, maybe I should have just kept with the berghias but after two attempts over the course of six months and $750 down the tube, I had to pass and move on to a different attack.

$750 is a lot of cash for something that didn't work for you. No question about it.
Inland Aquatics in Terre Haute was an excellent source for Berghia (and almost anything else), but sadly they have now closed their doors. As I recall I paid about $3.50 each for Berghia from them, so the cost was quite reasonable.
Salty Underground sells egg clusters for a few bucks each. Otherwise, their actual live Berghia are very pricey, but I've had good experiences with a couple of coral purchases from them. Egg clusters would be an excellent way to start a Berghia colony, IMO.

Good luck with whatever route you choose to take.
 
How long would apitasia last in freshwater? want to reset fuge (infested) and want to kill off any spores before starting over, fuge is a perate chambern sump, can isolate it but noy leave it empty
 
How long would apitasia last in freshwater? want to reset fuge (infested) and want to kill off any spores before starting over, fuge is a perate chambern sump, can isolate it but noy leave it empty

This is an interesting idea.. I just tried lemon juice and it really worked.. wonder if fresh water / lemon juice combo would wipe me out..I may try installing a temporary sump, then pound my real sump this way..
 
We have done something similar. We stock captive bred peppermint that are the aiptasia eating species. A little pricier, but you know exactly what you are getting. Peppermint shrimp are pretty adventurous when they know you have food. We use a catheter syringe to suck up aiptasia, get it into the catheter portion. Dip the syringe in the water and the peppermints will start fighting each other to win the prize. The winner will hastily rip it out of the syringe and start shredding the aiptasia. It's pretty entertaining to watch one of our greatest foes decimated. I'll get a video the next time we do this.
I would love to see this!
 

IF YOU HAD TO TAKE A REEFING EXAM, WOULD YOU PASS?

  • Yes!

    Votes: 32 45.7%
  • Not yet, but I have one that I want to buy in mind!

    Votes: 9 12.9%
  • No.

    Votes: 26 37.1%
  • Other (please explain).

    Votes: 3 4.3%
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