Poll: How do you battle Aiptasia?

[Zeal]

It’ll pop the rock.

Eh..... ill use a bottle of axe and a lighter then.

 

[JonCollegeReefer]

I don't think anyone has talked about their berghia experience yet. I have mixed feelings about mine so far. My first batch from saltyunderground was 4 tiny berghia..the cheapest variety. A month later I had no visible aiptasia missing. I went ahead and purchased 7 medium and 1 large berghia from reeftown. Saw decent sized aiptasia disappear overnight. This was about a month ago and the battle continues...no baby nudi's yet though :/

 

[PaulS]

According to an LFS store here that everyone trusts they need to be wild caught peppermint shrimp

 

[estebanb450]

I used a heavy kalk slurry. And aptasia x was a hit and miss

 

[GSPClown94]

Every aquarium I have started has ended up with aiptasia at one point or another and it was very frustrating at first but now it is not so bad. During my first battle I bought Aiptasia X and it seemed to work well at killing individual aiptasias but more always seemed to pop up here and there and was kind of a never ending cycle. Later on I tried using peppermint shrimp which seemed to work best, they went after every single aiptasia. I have also found that if you are dealing with just one or two that come on a piece of live rock, rolling up a small ball of reef epoxy and smearing it over the aiptasia is a quick and easy way to kill it. Your rocks will look weird with random spots of epoxy on them but over time coralline algae will cover it up or you could kill two birds with one stone and epoxy some frags to the rock right over the aiptasia.

 

[MTBake]

I had a terrible infestation of these devils in my last tank. Nothing seemed to help. Tried aiptasia x, peppermint shrimp, kalk paste, and lemon juice in that tank. Nothing got rid of them. Most stuff made them spread. I haven't seen one in my new system, yet. I would probably remove what it is on and throw it in the trash. Seems harsh but I've been through the ringer with these devils.

 

[ou12004]

My sump is full of aiptasia, but my file fish keeps my display completely empty of aiptasia.

 

[DesertReefT4r]

The only thing that has worked for me to kill and control aptasia has been Aptasia X type treatment. FYI Aptasia X or Joes Juice is just kalk past. I switched to kalk paste once I ran out of the Aptasia X since I have kalk already for dosing. Predation control with peppermint shrimp dis not work. The shrimp totally ignored them and ended up dieing after a few months. Have not tried a File Fish. Many people have had good results with the shrimp and FF.

 

[TonapahNorth]

I’ve spent many hundreds of dollars on berghia nudibranchs. They are worthless. I have no peppermints or wrasse in my tanks that would prey upon them. I’ve waited for them to reproduce. I’ve waited for them to eat aptaisia. I’ve seen nothing. @Reeftown simply wont respond. I’d recommend anything but these things.

I’ve tried aptaisia X which seems to work the best but has done nothing really to eliminate the problem. All it does is get them out of sight for a while. My next step is a combo of matted filefish and peppermints. And continue to pray that I don’t just quit the hobby altogether because of these things.

 

[Vaughn17]

I’ve spent many hundreds of dollars on berghia nudibranchs. They are worthless. I have no peppermints or wrasse in my tanks that would prey upon them. I’ve waited for them to reproduce. I’ve waited for them to eat aptaisia. I’ve seen nothing. @Reeftown simply wont respond. I’d recommend anything but these things.

I’ve tried aptaisia X which seems to work the best but has done nothing really to eliminate the problem. All it does is get them out of sight for a while. My next step is a combo of matted filefish and peppermints. And continue to pray that I don’t just quit the hobby altogether because of these things.

Sorry you had no luck, but they sure worked for me. My 180 had hundreds of aiptasia, so I purchased a few dozen nudibranchs. It took about two months for them to eat every last aiptasia. Six months have since passed and no aiptasia, although I did see a very tiny nudibranch last week.

 

[Luno]

Vinegar injected straight into it when I see one

 

[aquaman33431]

this peppermint shrimp from live aquaria ate large and small aiptasia in my tank.

They are now permanent occupants in my tank

Peppermint Shrimp(Lysmata wurdemanni complex)

 

[cracker]

used Kalk paste in the beginning Now I keep a Copper Band never see one anymore.

 

[Scratch08]

With my light sabre. [emoji23]

 

[jd371]

I added peppermints and they were eaten by my wrasse, the copper band stopped eating the aptasia after a few months and the Aptasia-X made things worse. I used Aptasia-X on the big ones out in the open and it worked fine on those, but the smaller ones in the holes and crevices all it did was make them multiply and now they're everywhere. I added some Berghia this past week as my last hope. Since the Berghia are nocturnal and my Melanurus is buried in the sand when the lights go out I'm hoping their paths don't cross.

 

[ca1ore]

I have found the targeted approaches (kalk, apt-X, joe's juice, lemon, boiling water, laser) to be mostly useless. Far better, in my view, to employ a biological control .... in my case that usually means a fish. I've found the asfur angel, pyramid butterfly, and emperor angel all to be very good at eating both aiptasia and majanos (latter worse than the former IME).

 

[K. Steven]

The only thing that has worked for me to kill and control aptasia has been Aptasia X type treatment. FYI Aptasia X or Joes Juice is just kalk past. I switched to kalk paste once I ran out of the Aptasia X since I have kalk already for dosing. Predation control with peppermint shrimp dis not work. The shrimp totally ignored them and ended up dieing after a few months. Have not tried a File Fish. Many people have had good results with the shrimp and FF.

I don't know about Joe's Juice, but Aiptasia X is sodium hydroxide, not calcium hydroxide (kalkwasser), though I'm sure there's very little difference in their effect.

 

[theblackpearl]

I bought 5 nudibranches at a frag show. Slowly but surely all the aiptasia have disappeared. I probably had 50 aiptasia in a 93 cube

Best money Ive ever spent

 

[jbarre03]

I had horrible luck with them. I tried peppermints, aiptasia x, and nudi branches. The nudis would have worked but I housed a buddies wrasse and didn’t even think about it. My savior was my 2nd shot at a copperband

 

[OriginalUserName]

Syringe with kalk slurry worked just fine for me.