How to Propagate Aiptasia...

[hotdrop]

i don’t have an answer on how many but if anyone replicates the method 100x I would imagine that that could feed a lot of nudibranch maybe more that anyone could even sell nation wide. The aim of the thread was to show that it is possible to propagate aiptasia in fairly large numbers quite easily. Is just down to the community how they will use the information, id like to see them more affordable to all in a near future.

Hand fragmentation doesn’t take long as long as you have a shallow tray and a good quality long scissors.

I think your method is good As a high intensity high touch process but at scale you probably don’t want that much touch labor. Also aren’t they too big to be reliable nudibranch food? Wouldn’t more smaller ones be more desirable?

 

[billwill]

My personal experience is that you try to kill it poorly. Not enough kalk paste, poke it with a knife, pull on it with tweezers.

 

[tehmadreefer]

Not always, and wend they do it takes around 6 to 7 weeks to become of a decent size. Maybe longer if not feed.

Considering they eat most anything they catch, that’s an non issue...

 

[tehmadreefer]

Not always, and wend they do it takes around 6 to 7 weeks to become of a decent size. Maybe longer if not feed.

And majority of the time, yes.

another item. It’s “when” not wend.

 

[sixty_reefer]

I think your method is good As a high intensity high touch process but at scale you probably don’t want that much touch labor. Also aren’t they too big to be reliable nudibranch food? Wouldn’t more smaller ones be more desirable?

The labour is relative, for my current set up it takes me less than 5 minutes a day to care for them.

I feed them once a day, and every 7 days they get cut. The reason I expressed that a shallow tray is important in to make life easier, every time I frag the aips I just use a curved long scissors (the same scissors used to cut grass on planted tanks) and in a similar way it only takes seconds to go around and cut the aips on the stem near the foot without getting my hands wet. There is a lot of chemicals released during fragging attention to use protective equipment is always required.

For feeding I use one of these hatchers

It doesn’t take long to set it up. Obviously on a larger scale it would become more of a job as any other breeding process.

Nudibranch will eat any sized aip, they can eat very large aiptasias.

 

[sixty_reefer]

Considering they eat most anything they catch, that’s an non issue...

Yes, on larger foods like adult brine shrimp they will often regurgitate it. They tend to digest smaller foods easily. Am not the first to observe this, scientist often feed baby brine shrimp to they’re aptasia farms.

 

[najer]

Very interesting, how often do the nudis reproduce?

 

[sixty_reefer]

Very interesting, how often do the nudis reproduce?

The nudis are a bit like rabbits, they not different from any other nudibranch species as long as they got plenty of food they can become a pest fairly quick

 

[VR28man]

Very cool article.

I hope aiptasia aquaculture could lead to better and more effective ways to control them. To include apparently renting out groups of nudibranches.....

 

[piranhaman00]

My sump is pretty loaded with them. I keep rock in the sump that I switch out with rocks in the DT every once and a while. my CBB loves them and cleans the rocks off in one day. Then when the clean rocks get covered again I do another switch!

IMO they must have some benefit so I keep them happy in the sump

 

[andrewkw]

I figured I'd give this a go. I have Berghia coming but they won't be here until July 7th so why not? I collected about 2 dozen from my infested tank. Honestly I almost beat aiptasia with aiptasia x but I gave up after I nearly destroyed my 3 rbta's as they ended up ingesting quite a bit of it. Probably will take them 6+ months to recover if they ever do, and in that time I will no double triple my infestation.

Anyway I think rox carbon might be too small and light to use as substrate. That's all I have so I gave that a go. I also find the short container a bit of a pain to work with. Still I added my aiptasia to it and it's now floating in a 10g tank with an airline in the container. If I get annoyed with the little setup I think I will switch to using an entire 10g tank, maybe filled only halfway up, and perhaps a very very fine layer of sugar sized sand (again only substrate I have).

I don't think I'll go through the trouble of hatching bbs but have tons of small particle foods on hand. Will update in a few days.

 

[sixty_reefer]

I figured I'd give this a go. I have Berghia coming but they won't be here until July 7th so why not? I collected about 2 dozen from my infested tank. Honestly I almost beat aiptasia with aiptasia x but I gave up after I nearly destroyed my 3 rbta's as they ended up ingesting quite a bit of it. Probably will take them 6+ months to recover if they ever do, and in that time I will no double triple my infestation.

Anyway I think rox carbon might be too small and light to use as substrate. That's all I have so I gave that a go. I also find the short container a bit of a pain to work with. Still I added my aiptasia to it and it's now floating in a 10g tank with an airline in the container. If I get annoyed with the little setup I think I will switch to using an entire 10g tank, maybe filled only halfway up, and perhaps a very very fine layer of sugar sized sand (again only substrate I have).

I don't think I'll go through the trouble of hatching bbs but have tons of small particle foods on hand. Will update in a few days.

Try and update us weekly with photos and the foods you using

 

[Ardeus]

I tried to setup a small tank for 2 aiptasia with minimal equipment. They died within a few weeks. It had no flow. If I were to try that again, I would add xenias to provide at least some minimal flow.

I have 2 filefish that keep the tank clean and I let the aiptasia go wild in the overflow to continue to supply entertainment for the filefish.

 

[JAMSOURY]

Try and update us weekly with photos and the foods you using

Are you using any lighting or pure darkness for the aiptasia?

 

[sixty_reefer]

I tried to setup a small tank for 2 aiptasia with minimal equipment. They died within a few weeks. It had no flow. If I were to try that again, I would add xenias to provide at least some minimal flow.

I have 2 filefish that keep the tank clean and I let the aiptasia go wild in the overflow to continue to supply entertainment for the filefish.

I did tried that to with similar results to you. Who would think that aiptasia would be so hard to keep

 

[sixty_reefer]

Are you using any lighting or pure darkness for the aiptasia?

They are under a Ai sol running on the max that lights up my fuge. I use a dark blue acrylic covers to filter some light

 

[andrewkw]

So I've moved my aiptasia to their own 10g tank with about 3-4 gallons of water in it. They are still in the carbon tray and all seem to be eating and moved around a bit. Roughly a dozen anyway. I originally picked out closed to 2 dozen but some were pretty damaged and probably are under the carbon. I think I'll try and add another dozen or.

I'm just using an air pump for flow but I could either add a second line as the pump I'm using can accommodate 2 hoses or a tiny powerhead. The water is not deep enough for any sponge filters I have on hand but I suppose I could cut one down. That being said I'm not sure filtration is needed. What are your thoughts sixty_reefer? I religiously change water weekly in my reef, so a 90-100% weekly water change will require very little effort as I'll just use used water.

They have taken both reef roids as well as .5 mm coral frenzy pellets. In fact you could see the pellets inside the aiptasia but they have since been digested so I would say this size food is okay at least for the bigger ones. You can see some pellets left over in the carbon.

If anything this is a 0 cost busy project. Which I think will help me completely eliminate aiptasia from all of my systems. I only bought berghias for my 90 gallon tank which is infested, but if I actually breed some separate I'd be more willing to put a few in my frag / main display systems which are not infested. If I have a steady supply I can drop them where I see the few at the back and it won't be the end of the world if they don't find them all as I could just drop more in if my supply remains steady.

 

[sixty_reefer]

So I've moved my aiptasia to their own 10g tank with about 3-4 gallons of water in it. They are still in the carbon tray and all seem to be eating and moved around a bit. Roughly a dozen anyway. I originally picked out closed to 2 dozen but some were pretty damaged and probably are under the carbon. I think I'll try and add another dozen or.

I'm just using an air pump for flow but I could either add a second line as the pump I'm using can accommodate 2 hoses or a tiny powerhead. The water is not deep enough for any sponge filters I have on hand but I suppose I could cut one down. That being said I'm not sure filtration is needed. What are your thoughts sixty_reefer? I religiously change water weekly in my reef, so a 90-100% weekly water change will require very little effort as I'll just use used water.

They have taken both reef roids as well as .5 mm coral frenzy pellets. In fact you could see the pellets inside the aiptasia but they have since been digested so I would say this size food is okay at least for the bigger ones. You can see some pellets left over in the carbon.

If anything this is a 0 cost busy project. Which I think will help me completely eliminate aiptasia from all of my systems. I only bought berghias for my 90 gallon tank which is infested, but if I actually breed some separate I'd be more willing to put a few in my frag / main display systems which are not infested. If I have a steady supply I can drop them where I see the few at the back and it won't be the end of the world if they don't find them all as I could just drop more in if my supply remains steady.

Hi @andrewkw you got water movement, temperature and a place where bacteria can colonise (carbon) don’t see why it couldn’t work maybe if you see a rise in amônia could be beneficial to add some LR from your tank or some bottled bacteria. I have experienced the same as you on my initial collection of aptasia some seem to have died in the first week but the ones that survived do well. Maybe give it a go at fragging some next week as they should be fully recovered From the move by then. It’s absolutely crazy to see them full with food and the next day it’s gone isn’t it? Good luck

 

[andrewkw]

update :

I would say about half of them ended up melting. Could be anything, damage from the way I removed them, to feeding them too early to feeding them too much. The ones that did not melt are all looking "good" and I have many babies now. No fragging yet and I'm feeding them a lot less then when I started a whole week ago lol...

 

[JAMSOURY]

Cool! Spot feeding or just broadcast feeding live brine?

update :

I would say about half of them ended up melting. Could be anything, damage from the way I removed them, to feeding them too early to feeding them too much. The ones that did not melt are all looking "good" and I have many babies now. No fragging yet and I'm feeding them a lot less then when I started a whole week ago lol...