Zoa takeover

[Dsturgeon]

Had a couple of zoa heads on a piece of live rock. Over a few months they where spreading to cover the rock(I was happy!). However I’ve been watching these strange other types of soft type coral starting to take over the rock.

They aren’t bad to look at or anything but curious to what they are, as they are growing at a much fast rate than the Zoas.


Anyone any ideas??

Thanks in advance.

 

[bsn_rn_cen]

Aiptasia they are a pest anemone.

 

[DSC reef]

Those are aptasia, they will take over your tank and kill off your zoas. A few choices are kalk paste over the aptasia, aptasia X, etc. You can also remove the rock from the tank and frag some zoas off and place on a new rock and start over.

 

[PDR]

+1 aiptasia. They will sting and kill your zoas and need to be killed asap. Using kalk paste or aiptasia x should work.

Edit: dsc beat me to it lol

 

[Dsturgeon]

Those are aptasia, they will take over your tank and kill off your zoas. A few choices are kalk paste over the aptasia, aptasia X, etc. You can also remove the rock from the tank and frag some zoas off and place on a new rock and start over.

Thanks guys I knew there was something not right as the zoa where starting to regress

 

[Dsturgeon]

Aiptasia they are a pest anemone.

Thanks

 

[DSC reef]

+1 aiptasia. They will sting and kill your zoas and need to be killed asap. Using kalk paste or aiptasia x should work.

Edit: dsc beat me to it lol

Turbo thumbs;Hilarious;Hilarious

 

[Dsturgeon]

Thanks guys I knew there was something not right as the zoa where starting to regress

Can these be cut / pulled off the rock?

 

[DSC reef]

Can these be cut / pulled off the rock?

They can but I would not do it in the tank, they will spread like crazy. Any tissue left behind will also sprout new aptasia.

 

[Coralreefer1]

Better to inject Joe’s Juice, vinegar, lemon juice or a thick sludge of Kalkwasser using a syringe to kill the Aiptasia.

 

[zcedric]

take out intermediately and soak 10 days with poison. lol.
Like others said.. frag of the good stuff.. and kill the rest.

 

[Nburg's Reef]

Lemon juice and a nice thin syringe can do wonders.

 

[DSC reef]

@Dsturgeon injecting anything or covering the aptasia can run a high risk of causing an outbreak. Just want you to understand the risk before trying different methods. Fought those things for years. The bad thing is that there are probly 20 tiny ones you dont see yet in between the polyps.

 

[Oscaror]

Yikes that's some nasty aiptasia. If you really want to eradicate them and nothing else works you can try berghia nudibranchs. They're so good at their job they usually starve after it's done. You have other options like others have suggested, I'm just bringing this up so you know there's something to fall back on.

 

[RICH'S REEF]

Would a lawnmower blenny eat it?

 

[Oscaror]

Would a lawnmower blenny eat it?

No lawnmower blennys eat algae. Common natural solutions are peppermint shrimp (Not always successful), aiptasia eating filelish (will do their job but may also nip at corals), or copperbanded butterflyfish (hit or miss if they'll even touch the aiptasia and are hard to keep alive).

 

[Coralreefer1]

If you can’t control the Aiptasia, you could go with Berghia nudibranches, but work out a deal where either you can return them as a loan. Pet shops tend to have Aiptasia issues so by borrowing them it is a win win for both parties.

 

[norfolkgarden]

Your aptasia are huge.

Most creatures won't mess with something that large except maybe the copper band or the file fish.

If you kill them with AptasiaX, Joe's Juice, lemon juice, kalk paste or boiling water they will spread as a bunch of teeny tiny ones. (Not really much else you can do anyway)

But the good news is most of your natural predators will be able to devour the tiny ones at that point without getting stung too bad.

Make sure you have your natural predators in place the week that you kill the huge ones.

Copperband butterfly needs a huge tank. May not eat aptasia but many do. Difficult (nightmare) to get feeding on prepared foods afterwards.
Frail, ships poorly, red blotches on side is walking dead. A few white blobs on fins (not ich) is an ugly, mostly harmless, virus that goes away after a few months. Sorta kinda like the flu.
1 in 5 at LFS may be a good candidate for your 75+ gallon tank. Gets 6-7". Liveaquaria recommends 125 gallons minimum.
Bullet proof on Rods reef food and live blackworms several months after it is happy. [emoji846]
3+ hours of googling and reading before you even consider a copperband please. [emoji4]

File fish - we didn't have any aptasia but this guy looked so cool I wanted him anyway.
Easy to sex. Easy to get/create a pair. Awesome personality.
Oops, eats other soft corals besides aptasia. Not feeding it the $40 neon green Kenya tree!
Back to LFS.

Peppermint shrimp, true (Lysmata wurdemanni) , there are several look alikes. Most likely will solve your problem with the smaller aptasia.
Very, very, very slight chance it will go after zoas and other soft corals.
The other look alikes are more likely to be a problem with other soft corals. All will steal food from your corals if you target feed. [emoji6]

Bergia nudibrancs $$$ Best way to get rid of a heavy infestation. Or any infestation. Um, if you don't have wrasse that eat them.
Add to tank at night well after wrasse are asleep.
Bergias work at night and wrasse are active during the day. If they start out separated you have a better chance of keeping them alive in the wrasse tank. If you have rock with lots of tiny holes to hide in during the day the Bergia have a better chance.

Unfortunately Clean up is not an overnight process.
[emoji53]

Anyone have any other suggestions or clarification that I missed?
Thanks!

 

[Dsturgeon]

Thanks everyone for the reply’s! Excellent advice from everybody it’s really appreciated. I’m going to remove the largest ones by chiping rock away (out of the fish tank of coarse) then let it sit a couple of days before heading to my LFS to see if I can get a filefish or Nudibranch on loan as I don’t fancy keeping these permanently.

Once again thanks all

 

[vetteguy53081]

Copperband butterfly
Inject as many mentioned with lemon Juice or Kalk mixed with water into a paste