Restart due to aiptasia

[Jl330]

So my aiptasia problem is getting worse instead of better . I'm thinking if pulling my corals that are alive and my fish and putting them in a small tank temporarily and draining my display and sump, letting the rocks dry, and rebooting.

How long would it take for all the aiptasia to die if I clean and drain everything?




I understand this means I'll have to cycle again but I'm fighting a losing battle and it gives me a chance to redo my scape.

 

[jerrod]

Not being an butt but have you tried filefish, berghia, peppermints. I didn't have luck with peppermints but the other two helped.

 

[x2uranium]

Yep your in the wrong direction. If aiptasia is your main issue. Butterfly copper band will absolutely decimate aiptasia. I have ordered 2 in the past from liveaquaria. They both immediately ate aiptasia with in 20 mins of moving In. I used to have videos o. YouTube of their carnage.. can’t seem to find it it was years ago.

 

[chris k.]

The only way to have an aiptasia free tank is not to have anything in it. Peppermint shrimp have worked for me but they started eating my hammers. So i caught them and returned to the lfs.

 

[GeoSquid]

I shut down a tank once due to aiptasia. I tried boiling water then peppermint shrimp to no avail. I got a filefish that took care of the aiptasia pretty good. Once it ran out of aiptasia to eat, it ate all of my coral. I removed the fish and the aiptasia came right back with e vengeance. It is a 180 gallon tank and there must have hundreds of them. I shut the tank down for a month and left it dry and the rocks sat outside in the sun. When I started back up no more of them. Pretty drastic but now I'm very careful....2 years back up and knock knock on wood haven't had any since.

 

[Jl330]

I've tried peppermint shrimp, they atter my lps and left the aiptasia alone

Tried filefish, it ate nothing and died

Tried copperband#1 it cleared the tank then died

Copperband #2 died within 24 hours of introducing to the tank.

Aiptasia x just angers them and they spread.

At this point, with the lost fish and coral, I'm out thousands trying to beat it.

 

[2Wheelsonly]

I have a large tank, was loaded with SPS to the point it was impossible to reach. I tried killing a single aiptasia with aiptasiaX and I guess I missed because it caused the most massive infestation I ever knew could happen. In my 300G tank I literally had probably 800-900 of these things...under corals deep in rocks, overflows, sump, all in like 2-3 weeks. I tried fish but it seemed they couldn't reach, same issue with shrimp. I was ready to completely start over.

I ordered 15 Bhergia Nudi's and they went to work. After the first night I put them in the tank I didn't see a single one for 2 months and then started seeing them and slowly my population was going down. Month 3 I remember doing a double take as it seemed all of a sudden my aiptasia population was way down. By month 4 every single aiptasia was wiped out and I was chasing the nudi's around to give away so they wouldn't starve. I got mine from reeftown, if you decide to go that route feel free to reach out I can give you tips and lessons learned with my adventure (don't want to derail by talking about bhergia care).

I think the problem you can run into with fish/shrimp is that if you feed heavy then they will have no reason to attack the aiptasia. Bhergia ONLY eat them so it's eat or die and in my experience they are extremely hardy creatures that do whatever it takes to survive.

 

[Nano man]

Try everything above that everyone else has recommended! My problem was so bad that it even attached to my snails!
After hard work and perserverence I have eliminated all but maybe a few here and there. Find a peppermint shrimp that won’t eat your corals and keep him in the tank.

 

[guysmiley]

Yep your in the wrong direction. If aiptasia is your main issue. Butterfly copper band will absolutely decimate aiptasia. I have ordered 2 in the past from liveaquaria. They both immediately ate aiptasia with in 20 mins of moving In. I used to have videos o. YouTube of their carnage.. can’t seem to find it it was years ago.

totally right iv had copperbands do the same they are awesome

 

[guysmiley]

Try everything above that everyone else has recommended! My problem was so bad that it even attached to my snails!
After hard work and perserverence I have eliminated all but maybe a few here and there. Find a peppermint shrimp that won’t eat your corals and keep him in the tank.

copper band butterfly will nail them =)

 

[ReefHog]

I have a CBB in observation right now and he's decimated the Aiptasia covered rocks I put in there. He did stop eating for a few days while he consumed the 30+ Aips, but now that the rocks are bare, he has resumed eating mysis and clam slices. I will say that I made sure he was eating at the lfs before I bought him. I probably wouldn't buy one on-line. And I made sure he continued to eat at home before I quarantined him and treated with Chloroquine Phosphate.