My first aptasia

[brycenelson]

Hey guys I was looking at my tank and I found my first noticeable aptasia about pinky nail size. It’s in a spot where I can’t get to it with aptasiaX. What should I do? Should I leave it be or should I seek something to eat it? It’s the only one in the whole tank.
Any help appreciated

 

[brandon429]

what a crossroads you're at

using anything other than a guaranteed control will turn that into ten, and Aip x or any injectable can be searched to show it's far far from a guaranteed control. if you want to win, decisively, you lift out the rock and use a tap hammer and a flathead screwdriver and you dig up under it, scoring the rock, and make it gone. that's the only guaranteed method.

no excuse: excuses lead to the outbreak. you can indeed lift that rock out, pretend someone is offering you fifty thousand dollars to make that anemone gone/enact that with the pretend incentive. the incentive is you get to keep your reef, you don't wind up like 2000 searchable aiptasia wrecked threads.

 

[brandon429]

2000 wrecked aiptasia tankers would love to be at step one where you're at. the irony is, they'd repeat the same invasion steps lol. you can break this chain man


do opposite of what all searchable aiptasia reaction threads show for the win. chip it off, make a golf divot in the side of that rock and put it all right back together.

 

[JoeReefer81]

Take the rock out and remove the aptasia if you can. I have cut pieces of rocks off that aptasia's have been attached to with bone cutters. You can also scrape them off the rock with a razorblade and or cover with up with superglue or putty. You want to make sure you get all of it removed or they will keep coming back.

 

[brycenelson]

My one question to that is since this one is no where near any frag plugs how do I know pulling that rock out gets rid of it in my tank it obviously had to come from somewhere. If I do what you say I would have to do that to every rock to make sure I have no other aptasia.

 

[brandon429]

agreed on bone cutters. I had an aiptasia, once, in 2009

then I got the wire cutters out and literally cut off the jutting chunk of rock it was on

 

[brandon429]

first do the action step, question later. that question is causing hesitation, this is the only one you can see so far, you can't do anything about the dormant ones.

for sure there can be more, you'd repeat this step until they don't come up.

 

[brandon429]

right now 50 joe's juice users are hammering away at the keys preparing the onslaught, society wants you invaded man he he

 

[Lavey29]

Hey guys I was looking at my tank and I found my first noticeable aptasia about pinky nail size. It’s in a spot where I can’t get to it with aptasiaX. What should I do? Should I leave it be or should I seek something to eat it? It’s the only one in the whole tank.
Any help appreciated

Get yourself a laser and a 6 pack and enjoy the ride.

 

[paragrouper]

My one question to that is since this one is no where near any frag plugs how do I know pulling that rock out gets rid of it in my tank it obviously had to come from somewhere. If I do what you say I would have to do that to every rock to make sure I have no other aptasia.

Good question. The answer is, unfortunately, you won’t. What @brandon429 and others are telling you to do is correct. Pull the rock, decisively eradicate the Aiptasia, and be prepared to repeat this action should you find another. All in tank methods Rick the anemone ejecting spores, which will only seed your tank with more.

 

[Court_Appointed_Hypeman]

Given this, what is the risk of aptasia being introduced if I only add coral without a plug/object they are glued to from the seller? I've been taking off the plugs on all of mine. Still getting peppermint shrimp soon to make sure if it is introduced that it never shows up

 

[Garf]

I've been taking off the plugs on all of mine

Yes, that’s a good idea. Doesn’t really work if you were to buy zoanthids and the like, though.

 

[brandon429]

low risk

algae an dinos cells are much more of a risk from frag plug vectors


they're usually visible at the start, pop up ones are the rarity

every indication this is his only one, worst case scenario 1 or 2 more but there aren't 20 waiting to arise. they don't work that way

these are the easiest invasions in reefing to fix, it's the psychology of being invaded that is the tricky part. acting in a determined and absolutely commanding way is not traded very much in the hobby. making a purchase is what's traded

if Bryce elects to hammer this animal gone I can finally get my second work entrant example for my aiptasia kill thread in three years. for 36 months, the passivist means have been winning lol.

 

[Narideth]

Pull the rock! I've removed rocks, superglued frags... I even lost an acan that I considered an acceptable (though sad) sacrifice in my quest to keep aptasia from entering my tanks.

 

[brandon429]

for example if Bryce pulled the rock, sawed it in half, and put back the good half, and tossed out the other 50% that would be decisive and I'd be impressed. it's a bit wasting of the rest of the rock compared to a screwdriver divot, but at least he'd be heading into it with the right mentality. man vs anemone, who will win>

It cracks me up to think the vast majority of reefers even if truly incented with fifty thousand dollars to command a win would still do a search, grab the first mention of an injection, and then do it. then they'd lose the money with ten more that pop up. if someone offered me 50K to rid a rock of an anemone, I'd just put the entire rock in the trash and collect. do something mean, extreme, determined

absorb the pain from all the countless losses of tanks to preventable aiptasia anemones and and do the opposite. if he had an acetylene cutting torch in the garage, and fired it up on that spot for 5 mins, I'd accept that as a win.

 

[brandon429]

current aiptasia count, = 9

did you kid glove it or did you manhandle it

 

[Reeferbadness]

Get a bottle of F Aiptasia, easily kill your intruder and hope that it's the only one (which it probably is not).

 

[7of9]

Hey guys I was looking at my tank and I found my first noticeable aptasia about pinky nail size. It’s in a spot where I can’t get to it with aptasiaX. What should I do? Should I leave it be or should I seek something to eat it? It’s the only one in the whole tank.
Any help appreciated

 

[brandon429]

prediction: an injection was made. sixteen new babies are hiding in the cracks awaiting to emerge like hyenas, the masses won out with their reproductive advices.

 

[jda]

If you can see one, you can bet that you have many more. If you have a full scale reef with 35 ppt water, lower no3 and po4, then Peppermint Shrimp from the Florida Keys will eat the ones that they can get to. They won't eat the super huge ones that could eat them, but they do a really good job with the smaller ones. Shrimp are sensitive to high nitrates. Peppermints seem to live only about three years, so they do need replaced every once in a while. They need to eat so some flakes, pellets or extra food floating around is good. Peppermints from other parts of the gulf and atlantic are not as good as the ones from the Keys, IMO. There are a handful of divers from the Keys that will sell to you directly and ship to your home.

Tanks get aiptasia. Your only hope of not getting them is 100% coral QT for months, but even then, they can get through. You just have to have critters that eat them, and then understand the critters.