Can Corals Resist Aiptasia?

[redstorm6]

I've been fighting a small aiptasia outbreak for a few weeks in my 8 month old tank and I have a plating monitpora with a small aiptasia underneath it. I noticed over the last two months the montipora has reversed the direction it's spreading. I'm assuming this is in response to the aiptasia irritating it. It got me thinking, some corals will respond aggressively to other corals encroaching on their turf. Has anyone ever had a coral keep itself and it's area clear of aiptasia via stinging tentacles, etc? Does aiptasia eventually spread so much it overwhelms other corals eventually?

As for my case, i'm physically removing what I can and added a filefish. We will see how that goes.

 

[Terri Caton]

Not in my experience. Those darn Aptasia invade everything and they sting what they touch.
A good way to kill them is with Pickling Lime. Make a very thick paste and squirt it into the mouth of the Aptasia or cover it with the paste. Wait a couple of hours and then suck up the paste and Aptasia with a turkey baster.

My filefish won't touch them. The Copperband Butterfly is starting to love to eat them.

 

[KrisReef]

Aptasia do more damage to desirable coral ime. I hope your filefish gets busy. It is a wonderful thing to see them disappear.

 

[Uncle99]

Aptasia anemones can harass corals they touch, make them shrink or not fully open. This leads to a deficiency in their photosynthesis process and if prolonged, can kill.
If I see a coral retract, first thing I do is search to see if it’s an Aptasia, many times that’s yes.
I continue to take them out as I find them with a shot of Aptasia X.
Have not seen one in a while, but there’s always one somewhere I think.

 

[DSC reef]

Aptasia have very strong nematocysts which will damage corals even from underneath.

 

[Sashaka]

My filefish loved the stuff, but getting one that really prefers aiptasia to the other foods we feed can be hit or miss. My aiptasia nightmare started with a single head of aiptasia that grew and grew. It didn't spread until I decided to try to get rid of it with homemade pastes, hot water, and Aiptasia X (not all at the same time). I wish I had just lifted the rock it was on and been done with it, but the rock was a base rock and I would have had to remove half the rock in my tank to get to it. In hindsight, it would have been the better option. Messing with the aiptasia caused it to defend itself by multiplying.

It was like a bomb went off in my tank and tiny aiptasia was everywhere. After four years of continuing the fight with every known suggestion to rid my tank of the stuff, I got a filefish. It did control what it could reach, which was awesome, but the dang stuff was still growing happily in the overflow, pipes, and sump as well as hidden under and behind rocks, hiding inbetween corals and causing retraction and damage. I finally broke down the tank and started over. I now no longer have aiptasia.

I guess you'll have to decide how much having it in your tank irritates you and go from there. For me, years of fighting the plague and hundreds of $ spent without successful eradication was enough for me to throw in the towel and start over. The hobby is much more enjoyable for me now. LOL

Good luck. I wish there was a better answer to your problem, but if there is...I never found it.

 

[sde1500]

My meteor shower cypastrea has just recent completed encrusting completely over where some aiptasia

 

[Sashaka]

My meteor shower cypastrea has just recent completed encrusting completely over where some aiptasia

Could be the aiptasia decided to take a walk. If not, that's awesome!

 

[Dkeller_nc]

I think most experienced reefers will tell you that you're going to have to actively battle aiptasia. Left alone, they will eventually take over the tank, either slowly if you don't feed all that much, or very rapidly if you use coral foods.

I've beaten an infestation back many times over the last 20-30 years. As others have noted, using Aiptasia-X and similar products tends to cause the dying adults to generate planulae larvae that scatter all over your tank. My early successful solution was actually taking the tank down and storing the live rock in circulating heated saltwater in the dark for a few months. Obviously, that's not a desirable solution because of the work that it takes and the absence of the tank, but it's 100% effective without having to bleach the rock.

For me, aiptasia-eating fish was a hit and miss solution. As others noted, getting a fish that prefers aiptasia, even among species known to feed on them, was quite variable. And that's not an option in a relatively small tank - a copperband is going to feel pretty cramped in a 3' long tank.

This solution is going to sound tired, but the best cure is prevention, and that's quarantining everything that goes into the tank, including snails. And the quarantine needs to be long enough for small aiptasia to grow to visible size - I typically go for 6 weeks while feeding coral foods that encourage aiptasia's growth.

Once they're in a reef tank, my best success without the afore-mentioned tank teardown is aiptasia-eating nudibranchs (Berghia species). Unlike fish, this particular organism is aiptasia-specific; it can't survive without aiptasia, and it will eat nothing else, so there's no concern that it will eat coral. You can get them from various sources; my latest purchase was from Reeftown - they were shipped quickly, and were in excellent shape. Highly recommended.