Let's talk Aptasia.

[secretreefer]

Hey fellow reefers. Things are slowly getting out of control in my 180G. I'm on one my last choices here. It all happened back when......(insert flashback scene and flashback music here).... a buddy of mine had some extra joes juice and i only had 2 JUMBO aptasia for the longest time in my tank. never had more. So I decided to take them out. Long story short, I now have about 20+. so i figured i would give joe's juice a 2nd shot 3 weeks ago, nope. not helping. I heard anemone hermits will eat and destroy other anemones. nope he had my ora derasa 3 inch clam for dinner. my friend picked up a copperband for me and it died at his house before i could grab it. I want to go with Berghia Nudibranchs BUT, i have a yellow coris, large potters wrasse and a peppermint hog in my tank. WILL THOSE FISH EAT THE BERGHIA NUDIBRANCH? I know they're reef safe but is the berghia going to be safe from MY REEF? It's either chance it or take them out and then add the nudibranchs. OPINIONS NEEDED AND PAST EXPERIENCES IN DESTROYING THOSE CLEAR BROWN TENTACLED PESTS PLEASE!!!!!! thanks! :cry::cry:

 

[palvyre]

I went with a copper banded butterfly. Ate all of the Aiptasia in my tank in a couple days.

 

[dsmhero]

I have tried AiptasiaX, lemon juice, and boiling water to no avail. Then I decided to get 2 peppermint shrimp, within 24 hours all of my aiptasia was gone!(roughly 15) and haven't seen another one since. Just my experience.

 

[underwaterfirefighter]

It's a real pain, but i have used white vinegar in a syringe and injected them. If you can get to them this method has worked for me. Like I say... It's a real pain! Hope this helps. Good luck.

 

[firefightered]

I used Kalk past and it worked great. Here is how you do it.
Take a little Kalk or Ms. Wages Pickling Lime and mix it with a little ro water to the thickness of pancake batter. Turn your pumps off, put a piece of air tubing on the end of a 50ml syringe ( pharmacy for about $2) Put the kalk past in the syringe and cover the aptasia with the past. Wait about 15 min. and turn pumps back on. In about a week if there are any that servived do it again. I have not had any servive the 2nd dose. It's real cheap and it works.

 

[SteveT]

Sounds like this is not an option for you based on your fish, but the right species of peppermint shrimp are the best solution I have found. You could always buy a couple and put them in after lights out and hope they can hide from your fish long enough to eat a bunch

 

[PolandSpring]

I remember my first aptaisha, it came in between my chong bong polyp frag. I tried to squish it thinking i would kill it....well, i was wrong. About a month later 30 aptasia were popping up everywhere!!! I bought a copperband, ate them all in 2 days and they stayed away. But sadly, my copperband died 1.5 months later and again, 3 weeks after it died i started seeing some aptaisha again. Then i got sick of it! Everywhere i looked i saw a tiny aptasia and i couldnt stand it. So, my last choice were to go with peppermint shrimps. I bought 5 for my 90 gallon tank. All aptasia were gone in 2 days and stayed away. Howver, about 2 months later i noticed some of my favias had bite marks surrounding their mouths. Then one night i caught the shrimp chomping at it. So my suggestion is - buy a few peppermints, keep them in for about a week until they are all gone and then get them out. I got all them out in 3 days by uaing the bottle method. Hope this helps. Hopefully with the fish you have you can still keep peppermint shrimps

 

[secretreefer]

Palvyre- i might try and acquire another one. not sure my wellso, lobos, blastos, will be safe from it tho. any experience with copperband and LPS?
dsmhero- thanks, there's no way my coris and pep hog will let anything that looks like a shrimp survive.
underwaterfirefighter- vinegar and syringe. hmm. i might try that. acid. but i'm sure that wouldn't.
firefightered-kalk paste. i heard joes juice and aptasia x is pretty much the same?
stevet- yeah unless i remove the fish pep shrimp is not an option.

Keep em coming guys. thanks for the input and sharing what you've used in the past.

 

[secretreefer]

thanks for sharing the experience. that's sounds like a good idea. i watched a youtube video of a copperband eating an aptasia but it only ripped off the 2/3 top off and the foot was still attached. not sure if it ate it since it started going for the other aptasia. I would think since the pep shrimp is smaller and can get into smaller places that might be the direction i'm going or with berghia.

I remember my first aptaisha, it came in between my chong bong polyp frag. I tried to squish it thinking i would kill it....well, i was wrong. About a month later 30 aptasia were popping up everywhere!!! I bought a copperband, ate them all in 2 days and they stayed away. But sadly, my copperband died 1.5 months later and again, 3 weeks after it died i started seeing some aptaisha again. Then i got sick of it! Everywhere i looked i saw a tiny aptasia and i couldnt stand it. So, my last choice were to go with peppermint shrimps. I bought 5 for my 90 gallon tank. All aptasia were gone in 2 days and stayed away. Howver, about 2 months later i noticed some of my favias had bite marks surrounding their mouths. Then one night i caught the shrimp chomping at it. So my suggestion is - buy a few peppermints, keep them in for about a week until they are all gone and then get them out. I got all them out in 3 days by uaing the bottle method. Hope this helps. Hopefully with the fish you have you can still keep peppermint shrimps

 

[bmack]

I have been in this hobby close to 20 years and nothing made we want to ditch it all like aptasia. Although I am sure Joes Juice Aptasia X and the rest work for some it never did anything but create more Aptasia for me. What eventually worked was a combination of Peppermint Shrimp and a Copper band. There is a File Fish that will take them out as well. One of the LFS stores in my area has one that has seen many a customers tank. He is basically rented out to clean things up then returned to the store. My understanding is that they will not eat anything else after the aptasia is gone so it is not a long term keep. Of course trying to catch him in a fully stocked reef might be an adventure. This might be an option if you don't want to try the butterfly route. I was lucky my butterfly is still with me 2 years later and eats everything offered, but this is def not the norm. Bottom line don't ignore them, I did until one got in a powerhead next thing I knew I had more Aptasia than I could count. Grown men don't cry? Try losing several 15 year old corals..good luck, you can get rid of them you just have to be patient and have some help.

 

[Murfman]

I use an electric wand. There is also a thread on here with guys using a laser to kill them. Looks real promising!!!!

 

[secretreefer]

thanks bmack. i'm also thinking of the combination theory also. Joe's juice created more aptasia for me too. i should've left the 2 "twins" alone, took the whole rock out and chipped out the piece they were attached too.

 

[secretreefer]

hey buddy! yeah i heard the electric wand doesn't work that well for more than less. same as joe's juice i heard. But how is it working for ya? a buddy of mine is testing with a laser and looks promising!

 

[palvyre]

My copper banded leaves all of my coral alone. He is a picky eater however and I have to feed him live clam.

 

[secretreefer]

live clam??? lol. that's one picky copperband! there's no way i could feed live clam every day. lol!

My copper banded leaves all of my coral alone. He is a picky eater however and I have to feed him live clam.

 

[arotbart]

Filefish

Added a filefish about a week ago....all aptasia gone!

Best 25 bucks I a have spent!

I have 95% sps....but I have a few scans and huge goni that he has not touched.

He eats frozen mysis when I feed too

 

[swannyson7]

I recently picked up a matted filefish from the LFS. He initially developed a taste for one of my lobos, but once I secluded the lobo in an acclimation box he became an aiptasia eating machine!

 

[secretreefer]

WINNING! i didn't think about covering the LPS with plastic containers. this is also might be included in my "technique" to rid myself of the brown anemones!

 

[sirevans reef]

I just killed two in my 125 reef. All I did was boil some water and shot two plastic 10 millimeter syring full at the base and on top of it and wall-la- pest be gone.

 

[Reefer831]

I have been fighting aptasia for many years and the best way to get rid or at least slow these annoying things down is to first turn off all the flow, hit them with aptasiaX, and then suck out the aptasiaX and the apasia remains about ten min after...do this once or twice a week until you get most of them...next add in a good amount of peppermint shrimp, these will eat the small aptasia that will spread after the aptaisaX...adding the shrimp after the aptasiaX is important...with out them the aptasiaX is worthless, all you will end up doing is spreading the problem around and the next thing you know you will have hundreds of these things around your tank..I have heard the coperband works well but I have always been scared for my LPS...be sure to watch out for the peppermint shrimp munching on your LPS also...in the past I have had a few picking on my brains and scolys after all my aptaisa were gone...one good thing about the shrimp is that if at any time you really need to get them out and cant catch them, all you need to do is just interceptor your tank and nuke them out. Good luck with the battle.