Poll: How do you battle Aiptasia?

dbl · Apr 19, 2018

We did a poll on this a while back, but it's so often asked I'm curious to see the current trend. It may be interesting to compare to the prior poll to see what if anything has changed in the battle against these little boogers.

So list is long and I may have missed a method, so feel free to discuss your methods.

Crabs McJones · Apr 19, 2018

Knock on wood, I haven't had aptasia. I know my day is probably coming

dwolson · Apr 19, 2018

Filefish and Peppermint shrimp for the little ones. AiptaisX for the big guys.

Sipec · Apr 19, 2018

I dont have very many of them, and theyre not harming anything, so i just leave them there. I have a cleaner shrimp but he doesnt touch them

mfinn · Apr 19, 2018

Of the 11 choices, I picked 8 as tools I have used in the past for aiptasias, all with some success.
The peppermint shrimp worked very well in my 50 long term, while not so well in a bigger tank.
The CBB and Matted Filefish worked well in the bigger tank long term.
Most of the other choices worked only moderately well.

mfinn · Apr 19, 2018

Joey123 said:
I dont have very many of them, and theyre not harming anything, so i just leave them there. I have a cleaner shrimp but he doesnt touch them

This one pest you want to stay on top of.
It only gets harder to deal with the longer you let it go.

Daniel@R2R · Apr 19, 2018

Peppermint shrimp has been the only one of these that has actually worked for me, and I've tried most of them.

Yati · Apr 19, 2018

In all my years of reefing the only time I ever had an issue with aptasia was in 2011/2012ish.. I broke my own rules, I was buying at multiple stores and just putting things in my location and a few popped up.. I went and got 6 peppermint shrimp and put them in the system and within a week they wiped them out for me.. can't say i've seen one in my system before or after that ordeal and hope to never get one again!

User1 · Apr 19, 2018

Mated file fish. Great fish, unique, color changes with surrounding, and peaceful. Took about a month to clear out my problem but the stuff never really bothered me nor was to plague proportions either I guess if truth be told. If they eat other foods then I'd consider keeping them. Mine did. Had him for three years until he started to pick on my Xenia. While I normally wouldn't care at the time it was just a frag and couldn't keep up grow pace with his eating habits. So I returned him. Bummer too because he was a pretty funny fish. I'd float a piece of Nori on the top of the tank and he would use it for a cover. No idea why but every time that is what he did - go figure. Just make sure you get the matted filefish.

Slyler · Apr 19, 2018

I used Joes juice and it worked great at getting rid of the ones I could see, but more and more would pop up and take their place. I then tried peps, and they didn't touch one, maybe it's because I feed my fish... I then got a copperband, which I had thought of getting anyways, and my problem has disappeared.

Chiefmaster30 · Apr 19, 2018

I bought an aptasia eating filefish from live aquaria about a month ago. Said it was a medium sized fish but it’s pretty small but so far he hasn’t touched any of my aptasia. Idk if it’s a matter filefish or not.

dilligaf29 · Apr 19, 2018

had my matted filefish for over a year .got him for a massive outbreak of aiptasia. he also ate all my majano great fish took him a few weeks to start eating them tho .very happy i added him to my tank

Js.Aqua.Project · Apr 19, 2018

Lasers by far are the most fun method, but I have also used Aiptasia-X with some success. Peppermint shrimp are hit and miss, apparently only one species actively eats them.

madweazl · Apr 19, 2018

Only thing I've ever done that actually killed one was boiling water in a syringe; they laughed at AiptasiaX.

Cherub · Apr 19, 2018

gluing them shut is the only way I've ever killed them that didn't allow them to spread.

FredsNJReef · Apr 19, 2018

I used Aptasia X recently, but I just ordered a yellow and a green coris wrasse to help!

saltyfilmfolks · Apr 19, 2018

Other

guido5526 · Apr 19, 2018

I currently have peppermint shrimp but they wont touch it, have done aiptasia-x and seems like every time I do it the population in my fuge explodes days after evicting first batch. looking to get a couple nudis to hopefully wipe them completely