how would you solve aiptaisa in this tank?

[Devaji]

so I am starting to have an outbreak on the dreaded aiptasia in my RS 650P...

tank is a LPS dominate system with wellos and Euphyillia and one tester SPS that is growing and doing ok. but i am more of a LPS guy..

my tank will be wrasse dom. but as of now i only have a yellow wrasse but have credit for 4 others.
i also have a flame hawk.


my options as i see the are:
1. berghia nudis...and hope for the best might work if I dont add anymore wrasses to the tank for a few months
2. peppermint shrimp 5-6 of the little buggers. and hope they dont go after my other corals ot the flame hawk dont eat them.
3.I am doing a tank transfer due to a seam that is starting to fail. so I will be taking the rock out while out I can hit them with a kalk past or vingar solution.
4. sale the LPS and a butterfly and turn the tankinto a FOWLR or SPS tank. I have always wanted a Fish only but 175 gal. tank IMHO is on the smaller side.

IDK I keep going back in forth here on the right solution. only if CBB where easy to get eating and did not eat your meat corals it would be a easy solution.

anyone have experience with molly miller blennies eating aiptasia? would they be compatible with Midas blennies?
what about Australian Stripey? some say there are reef safe others say there not?

also what about the pyramid butterfly do they eat it?

 

[Anemone_Fanatic]

I recommend a molly miller blenny. They do eat RFAs, so if you have any of those, don't try one. Other than that, they seem like a good choice for getting rid of aiptasia. They also eat cyanobacteria, so that's just a bonus. One should get along fine with a midas blenny, because you have a big tank and they live in different areas of the water column.

 

[CoralB]

As long as you get true peppermint shrimp and that you get them from a source that guarantees them to eat as I went thru many before I found three that do and I haven’t seen aptasia in years . But yah ya got to make sure their not a snack for other critters .

 

[Devaji]

I recommend a molly miller blenny. They do eat RFAs, so if you have any of those, don't try one. Other than that, they seem like a good choice for getting rid of aiptasia. They also eat cyanobacteria, so that's just a bonus. One should get along fine with a midas blenny, because you have a big tank and they live in different areas of the water column.

that is good to know. i'll look into them more.

As long as you get true peppermint shrimp and that you get them from a source that guarantees them to eat as I went thru many before I found three that do and I haven’t seen aptasia in years . But yah ya got to make sure their not a snack for other critters .

no LFS around me so it would have to be online. places like saltyunderground or alagebarn

 

[brandon429]

Direct aiptasia removal from surfaces as the top removal option

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/first-aiptasia-sighting-what-would-you-do.808233/page-2#post-8647852 notice in the thread the surface with aiptasia was removed from the reef, and what was beside the aiptasia frag was taken off and moved back onto the reef allowing the aiptasia + the surface...

www.reef2reef.com

You should practice with one rock. Absolutely score the foot of the aiptasia off the rock by force digging up under the attachment foot
Chisel out the anemone, for the win.

The reason aips are such a problem is twofold: along with everything else in the hobby, direct control permission is never given up front. We're trained to sit back, permit a takeover, and then respond indirectly. New fish break disease protocols, aren't guaranteed to work.


The second reason we have aiptasia problems is because we are trained they'll explode in numbers with direct manual removal. Remember how they used to say everyone had an ammonia problem in reefing, and then we narrowed it down to actually zero ammonia problems? Same thing is happening with aiptasia manual removal... wrong info gets the start and we work backwards to undo it.

Pasting over aips is leaving in place and has a track record of regrowth events. Many cures too

Installing grazers provides a ~ 20% chance of targeted work per aiptasia help threads where people list methods tried among the passes and fails

Surgical control of rock? Absolutely removing the chip of rock the anemone is attached to? Effective. Aips aren't hard to control if you start where they're 2, vs 20

 

[Devaji]

Direct aiptasia removal from surfaces as the top removal option

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/first-aiptasia-sighting-what-would-you-do.808233/page-2#post-8647852 notice in the thread the surface with aiptasia was removed from the reef, and what was beside the aiptasia frag was taken off and moved back onto the reef allowing the aiptasia + the surface...

www.reef2reef.com

You should practice with one rock. Absolutely score the foot of the aiptasia off the rock by force digging up under the attachment foot
Chisel out the anemone, for the win.

The reason aips are such a problem is twofold: along with everything else in the hobby, direct control permission is never given up front. We're trained to sit back, permit a takeover, and then respond indirectly. New fish break disease protocols, aren't guaranteed to work.


The second reason we have aiptasia problems is because we are trained they'll explode in numbers with direct manual removal. Remember how they used to say everyone had an ammonia problem in reefing, and then we narrowed it down to actually zero ammonia problems? Same thing is happening with aiptasia manual removal... wrong info gets the start and we work backwards to undo it.

Pasting over aips is leaving in place and has a track record of regrowth events. Many cures too

Installing grazers provides a ~ 20% chance of targeted work per aiptasia help threads where people list methods tried among the passes and fails

Surgical control of rock? Absolutely removing the chip of rock the anemone is attached to? Effective. Aips aren't hard to control if you start where they're 2, vs 20

problem with that is I have 3 large rock NSA type of scape with corals glued on.
yeah I should of had a plan with I saw one. but wanted to research the "best" way to go about it. and BAM they spead from 1 -50 in a week or two

 

[brandon429]

that is a form of inaccess designed into the system, I recommend not doing that so that full required access can be attained. Anything other than what I'm posting is a fragmentation risk. the reason you don't see pico reefs with aiptasia problems is because its easy to chip them off vs keep them...all about access and willingness. the actual removal method is pretty well charted for success we merely need to find instances the owner is able to access the substrate directly, vs indirectly.

you could consider draining down the water to access the anemones outside the water. if murphy's law is in play, they're down low where even draining won't help.

 

[brandon429]

for sure if your tank was mine and someone offered me fifty thousand dollars to make aiptasia go away and the only tools I was given was a hammer and small angled sharpened chisel from home depot, I could make that happen and collect the payout. given the right motivation...it would look like golf divots where the aiptasias used to sprout from.

removed that way, they're gone, in that spot. you have to find each foot and unattach it

 

[brandon429]

in the very least, in terms of risk assessment to the system you're ruling out any new fish that's for sure...unless you can order pre quarantined ones and the cost is worth the experiment.

 

[Duncan62]

so I am starting to have an outbreak on the dreaded aiptasia in my RS 650P...

tank is a LPS dominate system with wellos and Euphyillia and one tester SPS that is growing and doing ok. but i am more of a LPS guy..

my tank will be wrasse dom. but as of now i only have a yellow wrasse but have credit for 4 others.
i also have a flame hawk.


my options as i see the are:
1. berghia nudis...and hope for the best might work if I dont add anymore wrasses to the tank for a few months
2. peppermint shrimp 5-6 of the little buggers. and hope they dont go after my other corals ot the flame hawk dont eat them.
3.I am doing a tank transfer due to a seam that is starting to fail. so I will be taking the rock out while out I can hit them with a kalk past or vingar solution.
4. sale the LPS and a butterfly and turn the tankinto a FOWLR or SPS tank. I have always wanted a Fish only but 175 gal. tank IMHO is on the smaller side.

IDK I keep going back in forth here on the right solution. only if CBB where easy to get eating and did not eat your meat corals it would be a easy solution.

anyone have experience with molly miller blennies eating aiptasia? would they be compatible with Midas blennies?
what about Australian Stripey? some say there are reef safe others say there not?

also what about the pyramid butterfly do they eat it?

I'm a peppermint shrimp fan. They won't eat the really big ones but are great for management. I've seen them take food from a lobo or or other meaty night feeder but never any damage. They're cheap and effective plus some will come out during the day so you actually get to see them. Lol. Good luck.

 

[Devaji]

I'm a peppermint shrimp fan. They won't eat the really big ones but are great for management. I've seen them take food from a lobo or or other meaty night feeder but never any damage. They're cheap and effective plus some will come out during the day so you actually get to see them. Lol. Good luck.

thanks

 

[Lost in the Sauce]

You don't need to go chiseling out all of your rocks when there are predators that will fix this for you.

Get a 6 pack of peppermint shrimp from reef cleaners. Don't add more wrasses until they have done the job. You can assist with kalk paste if you want to speed it up.

 

[Chortanator]

peppermint shrimp and manual aiptasia-x got rid of them overnight for me

 

[ZombieEngineer]

Kalk paste has always kept them at bay for me. I apply it liberally and completely cover the aptasia so it cant ever expand out of its hidey hole.

You could get an aptasia eating filefish, berghia, and/or and army of peppermints. If you have 50 of them now, you might want multiple types.

The risk here though is since you have like 50 of them now, there is a good chance there are also some in areas that the fish can't eat them like your overflow.

 

[Duncan62]

Kalk paste has always kept them at bay for me. I apply it liberally and completely cover the aptasia so it cant ever expand out of its hidey hole.

You could get an aptasia eating filefish, berghia, and/or and army of peppermints. If you have 50 of them now, you might want multiple types.

The risk here though is since you have like 50 of them now, there is a good chance there are also some in areas that the fish can't eat them like your overflow.

The shrimp get the ones we can't see or apply kalk to. It is fun to melt one and it works but there lots you'll never see that the shrimp will.

 

[ZombieEngineer]

The shrimp get the ones we can't see or apply kalk to. It is fun to melt one and it works but there lots you'll never see that the shrimp will.

There may also be some that the shrimp can't see. You also want to check areas that get light but fish/shrimp can't reach. Sometimes they end up in overflows, return pump outlet, pumps, refugium, etc. And then it will look like they are gone but come right back.

 

[Uncle99]

Nudis got taken by the wrasse, peps are territorial so don’t actively hunt Aptasia, so you need a ton, which will steal food from your LPS when fed.

I got a big bottle of Aptasia X and a stick of epoxy.
I hit them every day, once a day with aptasia x and sealed some in.

Took about 4 months.

Havnt seen one in 6 months now.

Be persistent, very persistent and you will win.

 

[bnord]

I have used the three prong attack of peppermint shrimp, replacement peppermint shrimp when they disappear, F aptasia, (much better than X,) and my favorite, a captive bred AE Biota FileFish.
If they are large and spreading I think you need all 3
HAve never had to resort to nudibranch, but clearly are the gold standard

 

[Double monti 61]

Pep shrimp and aptasia x the only aptasia I have live in one of my filters and maybe they are part of the the filtration system? Never see them in the tank.

 

[davidcalgary29]

@Tamberav 's "hot water injection" method is second only to nudibranchs for me.

Explosive aiptasia growth in one of my tanks was directly linked to overfeeding and a high nutrient load; when I got rid of all the aiptasia with nudibranchs, majano growth exploded. Excess nutrients will ultimately be consumed by somtething, after all, if they're not exported out of your tank.