shornik
Well-Known Member
I wanted to start a thread to document my plan to attack and hopefully eradicate the aptasisa outbreak in my seahorse tank. I think there are basically three approaches to take: 1) use some chemical like Aptasia-X to get rid of them, or use a "natural" approach such as Aptasia eating Filefish or Berghia Nudi's. I've attempted approach #1 for a while and I'm loosing the battle. I also don't like the risk of the chemical damaging any of my corals and I know I've seen my fish try to eat the participate in the water column. I figure none of that is good and from what I've read the chemical approach could have made the issue worse by having the anemone spread spores as a result of my trying to zap it.
So I've been reading about the Filefish and was about to pull the plug and by an ORA one, when I hopped onto @REEF2REEF and read others posts about them. They certainly seem to work but a) they also might eat coral polyps and as my tank is all softies and gorgs and a few Acan's (just what they might eat) I didn't want to risk it, and b) they might not work, and c) well they aren't exactly the most attractive fish. But I think a natural approach is always the best and luckily I read about the Berghia Nudi's on one of the posts. I had actually read about them a long time ago but had forgotten they only eat aptasia. So this post is going to document how well (or not) they work.
First things first I had to find them. I did a search and only found two places that sold them. I went with reeftown.com mainly because they were a little cheaper then elsewhere. But this is an expensive fix (if it works). I have a 50 gallon tank and bought 8 of them, + shipping its a little over $100. Now when you factor in the bottles of Aptasia-X, or the cost of a file fish and shipping, the $100 isn't an exorbitant amount.
They Berghia were shipped overnight and honestly I couldn't be more impressed, it would be nice if some online coral/fish dealers would pack and ship as well.
When the package arrived the Berghia are in a small container:
You can see I received an extra free one and an egg case (actually there were two egg cases, which was nice).
The jar has a seal to prevent water getting out (I assume) but also I think to keep the Berghia from crawling up into the lid.
The Berghia are kind of small but look like this in the jar:
Kind of cute looking, and I hope mean, nasty and deadly to my Aptasia.
Anyway, they are quite small and fragile so you can't put them in a container to acclimate them to your tank water - or I would have just used the drip method. The Nudi's come with a small pipette for blowing them around or sucking up the eggs, but I just used that to remove water from the jar and add tank water to the jar:
I did this for about an hour, every 15 minutes taking out water and adding water from the tank. Then I removed most of the water and added the jar to the tank on a rock next to some Aptasia - per the instructions that come with them.
It took a little over 1 hour but eventually they all crawled out of the jar. Since then they've disappeared but that seems normal. I may not see them again other than indirectly as the Aptasia disappear.
I also was able to place one egg case in a crevice in a rock next to an Aptasia (again as per the instructions) and will see if anything happens with that.
The plan is to have these start to breed and grow the colony and have the colony attack the Aptasia throughout the tank. I'll periodically update this thread with any observations I make to help anyone else thinking about taking this route with their tank.
So I've been reading about the Filefish and was about to pull the plug and by an ORA one, when I hopped onto @REEF2REEF and read others posts about them. They certainly seem to work but a) they also might eat coral polyps and as my tank is all softies and gorgs and a few Acan's (just what they might eat) I didn't want to risk it, and b) they might not work, and c) well they aren't exactly the most attractive fish. But I think a natural approach is always the best and luckily I read about the Berghia Nudi's on one of the posts. I had actually read about them a long time ago but had forgotten they only eat aptasia. So this post is going to document how well (or not) they work.
First things first I had to find them. I did a search and only found two places that sold them. I went with reeftown.com mainly because they were a little cheaper then elsewhere. But this is an expensive fix (if it works). I have a 50 gallon tank and bought 8 of them, + shipping its a little over $100. Now when you factor in the bottles of Aptasia-X, or the cost of a file fish and shipping, the $100 isn't an exorbitant amount.
They Berghia were shipped overnight and honestly I couldn't be more impressed, it would be nice if some online coral/fish dealers would pack and ship as well.
When the package arrived the Berghia are in a small container:
You can see I received an extra free one and an egg case (actually there were two egg cases, which was nice).
The jar has a seal to prevent water getting out (I assume) but also I think to keep the Berghia from crawling up into the lid.
The Berghia are kind of small but look like this in the jar:
Kind of cute looking, and I hope mean, nasty and deadly to my Aptasia.
Anyway, they are quite small and fragile so you can't put them in a container to acclimate them to your tank water - or I would have just used the drip method. The Nudi's come with a small pipette for blowing them around or sucking up the eggs, but I just used that to remove water from the jar and add tank water to the jar:
I did this for about an hour, every 15 minutes taking out water and adding water from the tank. Then I removed most of the water and added the jar to the tank on a rock next to some Aptasia - per the instructions that come with them.
It took a little over 1 hour but eventually they all crawled out of the jar. Since then they've disappeared but that seems normal. I may not see them again other than indirectly as the Aptasia disappear.
I also was able to place one egg case in a crevice in a rock next to an Aptasia (again as per the instructions) and will see if anything happens with that.
The plan is to have these start to breed and grow the colony and have the colony attack the Aptasia throughout the tank. I'll periodically update this thread with any observations I make to help anyone else thinking about taking this route with their tank.
