Precise Aiptasia Removal
- Thread starter A Toadstool Leather
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EHerbert
Active Member
That's why I'm waiting 4/6 weeks to add them. To give the Berghia the opportunity to breed and establish a colony. If they're working out well I may not even add the peppermints. Thanks for the input...
EHerbert
Active Member
That's why I'm waiting 4/6 weeks to add them. To give the Berghia the opportunity to breed and establish a colony. If they're working out well I may not even add the peppermints. Thanks for the input...
EHerbert
Active Member
Well, the Berghia are my next step. Just ordered a dozen from Reeftown. I'very heard good things about them too. I'very heard mixed reviews about the Peppwrmints. I think you gotta starve your tank initially when you go that route to get them focused on the Aiptasia. They get used to a regular food source..,
Berghia need a light water flow in many tanks the flow is too high. I have tried them twice without any luck. Peppermints work if you don't feed the tank otherwise they will eat the food. The juice method is hard to get to work as aiptasia can grow back from a small piece of tissue. I wish Acros had resilience of aiptasia. But then we might be trying to kill them and call them pest's
Breadman03
Valuable Member
If the berghia are breeding, they'll take care of the problem. I'd let them have free reign until the tank is cleaned up and they die off, then get the peppermints to prevent reinfestation.
I was given a smaller tank with rock covered in aiptasia, the previous owner had tried appx and had an explosion so gave up. After searching I found someone that used boiling water with a syringe. I boil the water, then pour it into a squirt bottle with a needle stuck out the hole in the top and squirt it into the hole where the aiptasia is/was. It took several weeks to get them all but they never came back from it
I don't know how much of an issue it is nowadays, but it used to be that multiple types of shrimp were called "peppermint" (from Rhynocetes which are questionably reef safe and don't eat aiptasia to the various Lysmata species). Some of the issues about peppermints not working was that people may have had the wrong type of shrimp. I don't know if Lysmata amboinensis (skunk cleaner) kills aiptasia, or if it is more specific to L. wurdemanni.
EHerbert
Active Member
That sound like the way to go... thanks.
rstrann
Active Member
I just use aiptasia x once every couple months and it keeps the numbers down, and the size of them small. I made a 5watt laser, and even at that power, it still took a long time to kill just one aiptasia (like 5 minutes each for big ones). Plus you have to shield the fish from the light beam so it doesn't blind them, which isn't easy.. So yeah, don't even entertain the laser method, it sucks lol.
