How to only kill aptasia

[bubbaque]

I have a single aptasia in the middle of my Zoas. How do I go about getting rid of it without killing the Zoas around it? I can not remove the rock.

 

[nautical_nathaniel]

You may want to try the lemon juice injection method, you'll need a needle and syringe and may want to get the zoas around it to close up first so you don't accidentally stick them.

 

[Sipec]

I have one in my zoas too. I’d recommend reaching in and carefully stabing/scraping it, or using aptaisa x (i think thats wat its called)

Nice colonies btw

 

[Sipec]

Or you could pull it off with tweezers too, that would probably be safer

 

[bubbaque]

I have one in my zoas too. I’d recommend reaching in and carefully stabing/scraping it, or using aptaisa x (i think thats wat its called)

Nice colonies btw

I just ordered the aptasia x. Thanks for the tip and compliment.

 

[Sipec]

I just ordered the aptasia x. Thanks for the tip and compliment.

No problem

 

[thaitopher]

I have a single aptasia in the middle of my Zoas. How do I go about getting rid of it without killing the Zoas around it? I can not remove the rock.

I have heard high powered blue lasers work

 

[mbmax]

Very rarely you have a single aptasia. Probably it is the first one you see but probably in a few weeks you will see 1 or 2 more and then more and more.
Aptasia - x is good but be careful it will also kill any coral that it touches .
Please don't scrape it, this will only spread it more.
I had a few aptasias and I got 4 Berghia Nudibrachs and they eliminated all of then in just a few weeks.

 

[wattson]

makes you wonder how that ******* got into the middle of the colony..im fighting my battle in the overflows with them now,,tiny ones keep showing up in my 3 tanks on one sump..

 

[saltyhog]

Remember the story about oyster fishermen cutting up the species of sea stars that were predatory on oysters? Turned out they were propagating them by cutting them up.

Same story with aiptasia if you try to scrape them off. Usually results in multiplying them IME. Aipatasia X should work on a single (as noted above, unlikely) specimen.

 

[Vaughn17]

Or you could pull it off with tweezers too, that would probably be safer

Pull it off with tweezers??? Bad idea.

 

[bubbaque]

I haven’t noticed any other ones, yet. That single one has been there probably 8 months. I originally noticed it at night when the Zoas were closed but it has grown big enough to standout the Zoas now.

 

[tsav87]

Peppermint shrimp always annihilate aiptasia. I have done this multiple times in different tanks with different peppermint shrimp.

 

[mtraylor]

syringe is best method as it will not affect the zoo's. Kalk paste may harm the zoo's.

 

[GoVols]

Have heard of reefer's using super glue for one inside a coral, but never tried it.

For an outbreak... bring on the Berghia Nudibrachs

 

[bubbaque]

I used the aptasia-x tonight but it was kind of hard to as it seemed like it wanted to recede. I sprayed it all over it so hopefully I got it, if not I will try again.

 

[rfischer]

I also had total success with peppermint shrimp.

 

[thaitopher]

The cheapest method is to use a syringe with white vinegar with 5% alcohol. I am 100% with that method but you will have issues with that given the close proximity the aptasia is to your zoas

 

[DSC reef]

I used the aptasia-x tonight but it was kind of hard to as it seemed like it wanted to recede. I sprayed it all over it so hopefully I got it, if not I will try again.

Hope this works for you, we dealt with this with our Rasta colony. I ended up removing it from the tank and manually removing the aptasia with a sharp exacto knife. It was very tedious. They ended up spreading the more I injected them. They were attaching to the zoas themselves. It's been about 2 years now of no aptasia on the colony. Keep us posted. That's a very nice colony you have.

 

[CoralReefer1019]

try some peppermint shrimp, or nudibranchs...just make sure you don’t have any fish like Wrasses that will eat them