Aptasia-X does work if you use it correctly. If you miss the mouth it gets really upset and shoots out spoors, and thus baby aptasia. I like the peppermint shrimp, but you need three (3) or more to be effective, and they take there time and don't eat the bigger ones. I have tried the Berghia Nudibranchs but I have no idea if the are there and working anymore, plus they are costly. The Aptasia eating matted file fish is the best at eradicating these anemones. The main problem with these are they will eat the corals after the aptasia are gone. I would not recommend picking at them they might shoot out spoors.
I have seen several recommendations for getting rid of Aptasia. I was very skeptical about all of them however I went ahead and I started with what seemed to be the simplest and most successful way that would work in my tank considering all the fishes and other livestock I have. I started out with the Red Sea Aptasia X and it did absolutely nothing. so I went with the next best proven results from looking through the formums and that led me to the burgi nudie branches. I spent probably $250 on these little critters. put them in my tank, never saw them, never saw them destroy a single piece of aptasia so I considered that money down the drain. I moved on to the next best solution which was getting some copperband butterfly fishes. This one was very borderline because just about everybody said they may or may not eat that aptasia. Anyway I went to my local fish store bought four of them. it so happened that two of them survived. I put them in a tank.
After about 2 weeks I didn't see any activity. then all of a sudden I just noticed them starting to attack that aptasia piece by piece. Now after about a month going on two months since they've been in the tank I am 100% optasia free. I repeat I am 100% of aptasia free. These two copperband butterflies have seeked out every living breathing aptasia in the tank and consumed them. They were about 80 bucks out of pocket compared to the $250 I pay for a nudibranch that I haven't seen since I put them in. So I say, money well spent. I have a large 300-gallon display tank with a total body of water about 400 gallons including my 50 gallon refugium and my 48 gallon sump plus all the plumbing and other filtration stuff. In my refugium I have a lot of optasia growing in there.
I did not put any of the copper bands in there so they've still live in the refugium which is plumbed about 16 feet away from my display tank. Today I find myself manually pulling aphasia out of my refugium throwing it into the display tank just to make sure the copperbands have something to eat.... how ironic. So I would say for anybody out there looking for a know, natural, simple, and economical way to tackle aptasia I would highly recommend the copperband butterflies.
get more than one, because you can always sell one back to your local fish store or give one to your buddy if they do too good a job cleaning the stuff up.
but in my experience that was the greatest value for my money.
I could not put peppermint shrimp because I have triggers and other aggressive fish that would just eat them.
Good good in your eradication
