1st Anemone!

[Lana]

Hey all!

Just got my very first anemone :-D It's a VERY active BTA (it's already gone all around my aquarium before deciding on it's current "spot"). While my eyeballs were practically glued to the front of the tank watching my new pride and joy, I noticed that I have a new, unidentified tenant. I can't see much more than itty bitty white tentacles sticking out of the powerhead strainer. Looks to me like either a miniscule anemone or coral. I can take the strainer off the powerhead and look at the little guy, but he is stuck like glue to the bottom of it. Wish I had a picture, but my el cheapo camera just doesn't take shots of the tank. Should I try to pry him off, or just leave him? I don't want to hurt him, and I don't know which would be more dangerous for him. Any suggestions?

[alexwolf]

almost sounds like aptaisia to me, but hey i am not an expert! Thats what it looked like in my tank, a little white anenome with 5 or 6 tentacles.

[Tim Marvin]

Sound like it to me also.

[witecap4u]

And if he goes through the powerhead.......you'll have plenty to look at in a couple weeks....

[GaryP]

An Aiptasia daiquiri? Just add ice and rum.

[Instar]

Lana,
Take a look at these pics. These guys gotta go, they reproduce like wild and will sting everything.
99.9% chance, growing in your strainer, Aiptasia is what it is. They vary in clarity and in the amount of white
frosting in their tentacles.

[Instar]

Oh, and BTW, they reproduce by foot (pedal) lacerations. If you squish it, trying to get it out and leave even one cell in that strainer, you'll have then all over the place. They are a pest and very difficult to get rid of once they get started. If you think they are cool, start a little nano for them. When I had one, I thought it was cool. In a couple months I had 3,000 of them. Now I think Copperbands are cool.

[jrhein]

So, How would you suggest getting rid of these pest? Is there a better way to remove them then just pulling them out.

[Instar]

There has been a couple discussions on here about gettting rid of aiptasia. Methods range from injecting with a kalkwasser solution, to an alkaline kalk paste (covering them), supergluing over them, chiseling the piece of rock off, injecting them with bioling DI/RO, using peppermint shrimp, using a copperband butterfly to eat him or getting a berghia nudibranch to eat it. Each method has good points and bad. Each method also has to be coupled with some know how, basic chemistry and the biology of what you are doing. You don't dare kalk a small tank or use a butterfly on a small tank. Butterflies don't mix with feather dusters and will take out a few astrea snails. A peppermint shrimp, providing its the right genus and species will eat it, providing the pepp is large enough and given the time, but, it will also strip the guts out of any other anemone or anemone like thing to get food. They don't hesitate to clip a few sps polyps in the late afternoon to munch on (although it doesn't seem to hurt them) and will eat all and any tunicates that are growing in your live rocks. Pepps are predators and will kill anemones at night. This includes tubastrea corals and a bunch of things. People report a wide range of results. They will eat the aiptasia once they figure it out and if they are large enough. Pepps will also eat the little foot lacerations so there are no babies. Copperbands will eat the adults and lacerations, but may take a second pass. They also have to be larger than 3 inches and need a reasonably big tank. They are always hungry. The Berghia nudibranch is selective, nocturnal, may be eaten by the peppermint or camel back shrimps and can get blown away by your pumps. But, Berghias ONLY eat aiptasia. They cost from $19 to 25 dollars each and you may need 2 of them. They feed at night and need rocks to hide under during daylight hours. They will only eat aiptasia and will likely die when the supply runs out. Many people have good results with any of the above. I like my copperbands, and also liked the pepps as long as I could keep them under control. Don't try a good sized pepp in with a BTA unless you have some real possessive clowns in it to protect it. I would never have pepps or camel backs in a reef where I can't get them out again, so berghia is for me in a large tank with lots of anemone spots. Hot water might make a split anemone soup in there and you'll have tons of them. Glue - i have too many doubts about that as it won't stick to one, kalk sounds good in tanks large enough for it and if there is only a couple to deal with. Chip that part of the rock off, if possible. You can boil it and use it to glue frags to later. Kalk paste always sounded good to me, but not really in a nano. If you use the kalk, be careful not to over do it for the tank size. I've used peppermints and copperbands. After the pepps were done, I put them in another tank. The copperbands are still on duty and will be in there with all my polyps and corals to keep them safe. I would love to use the nudibraches in a large tank but that method seems kind of expensive in a smal tank knowing that when all the aiptasia are gone I'll have to catch them to put somewhere else or they will starve. I have 6 in my 75 again, a tank once too full of pepps for my liking. Probably got them with some caulerpa to feed my tangs. I'm going to try a couple kalk and hot water methods and see what happens. Hot water on the little ones, hopefully they will be too small to lacerate into many more.

[robertpower3]

If it is attatched to the power head why don't you just take the powerhead out and put in some really hot water. You could even put a vinegar in and clean the power head while your AT IT. THAT IS ASSUMING THAT YOU ONLY HAVE ONE APTASIA ANEMONE.

[Lana]

Great! Just what I wanted: a hard-to-kill, easily multiplied monster in my tank. :x Of course the little varmint is nowhere to be seen now; I have to assume it's been dispersed throughout the tank, soon to show up again. I think I'll go with the Copperband if the Aptasia rears it's ugly head(s). It (the Copperband) won't hurt my BTA will it? Now, to top things off, I've got an outbreak of SOMETHING on my clowns. Looks like Brooklynella, but I'm not positive. The only thing I've found to treat it is Quick Cure-it contains Formalin. I've already put both clowns in the QT tank. Except for the white patches, they're okay. Eating like horses, swimming fine, etc... Oh well, challenges are good, right ???? :?

[Instar]

What sized tank do you have again? I thought it was like a 30 gallon or somewhere near that.
A copperband won't touch a BTA. Mine are in with yellow polyps, 2 small rock anemones, one flower anemone, all kinds of zoos, shrooms, soft and hard coral, sponges, gorgs. They like to eat feather dusters, pesky little worms, tiny shrimp and astrea snails. You need a pretty fair sized tank for one. I have 4 large hawaiian feather dusters in with mine. The dusters learn to become nocturnal and they are big enough to part with a feather now and then during the day. Challenges and stuff is what makes this fun! The cool part is there is always a natural predator and the fun is trying to discover what it is.

[GaryP]

Lana, I just hate it when that happens. A good excuse to go buy a new critter.

I just wish there was as easy a solution for my flat worm outbreak. This thread has been getting me really paranoid. Everytime I see a small feather duster on my live rock I end up doing a double take to make sure its not Aiptasia. I've never had Aiptasia that I know of, crossing my fingers.

Gary

[Instar]

Flat worms may actually be beneficial if they are not the wrong specie. Transparent ones eat corals. Most of them just eat algae. They come and go in their own. If you want to get something to eat them, there is an obligatory nudibranch that may survive the reef currents long enough or a mandarin. Need a good tank for one of them though. GARF has a page about the spotted mandarin eating flatworms.

[Lana]

Larry,
My tank is a 46 bowfront. It does have lots of swimming room - I have 60 lbs LR but I tried hard to make sure my fishies had room ro "run". Will a copperband survive in that size a tank? I don't want to make him miserable. How fast do they grow? I hadn't planned on getting a butterfly, so I don't know much about them. And if that little critter WAS an aptasia, how soon before I would see more of them? So far, nada.
Gary, I know exactly what you mean. I don't have flatworms, but several long bristleworms caused my heart to pound till I ID'd them. My coral banded shrimp keeps the worms in check - but I don't know if that's normal (he's a terror, so it might just be him :-)

[GaryP]

Larry,

I've done a lot of research on the flatworms. These are "aocel" worms. They are tiny (1/8 - 1/4") and a rusty red color. They seem to be going away and I haven't seen any deleterious effect from them. I think they are primarily detritivores/herbivores. They seem to concentrate on my glass in areas that don't get a lot of circulation and at the base of my LR. I bought some stuff that is supposed to get rid of it but haven't used it because of what I've read about it shocking the tank badly when the worms die. The flatworms supposedly release a lot of toxins when they die. I have been fairly successful in reducing their numbers by sucking them out when I do my weekly water changes (5-10%). I attribute their bloom to the upset that accompanied moving my tanks about 2 months ago, although I had seen them before that. They are just about gone in my 75 gal. and their number are about 25% of what I saw a month ago in my 125.

One technique that I found was useful when I was really working hard on trying to get rid of them was to choke down the tubing size on my Magnum to a smaller diameter (a little larger than air hose tubing). After priming the Magnum I just let it siphon into my sump rather than running the pump. I frayed the end of the tubing with a pair of small scissorsto give me a little brush. This has the effect of increase water velocity without sucking up a lot of substrate as I suck out the guys. When I'm done I bleach the Magnum filter. I still manage to suck up a few small Xenia in the process, but I have more than enough.

When I think I have got my flatworm population down I might try the flatworm exit to see if I can rid myself of the last of them without a huge shock to my system.

As far as I have been able to tell my mandarin hasn't touched them, and neither has my sixline wrasse. I recently found something that makes me think that I have the wrong kind of mandarin. Like most of you, I have a S. splendidus mandarin. I read something recently that the S. picturatus is the one that eats flatworms. If I see one I'm going to pick it up and put it in my other tank. I'll let you know how this experiment turn out. I've also heard that a leopard wrasse (guinea fowl wrasse, Macropharyngodon meleagris) will eat them but from talking to folks that have had experience with this species I have heard they can be pretty destructive in a reef tank.

OK, enough rambling for now.

Gary

[manny]

Aptasia is reeaaally little right? I dunno if it's just from readin this forum or what but I think I found somethin like this on on of my snails? It's hangin out on the shell of one of my huge turbos. I took the snail out just in case and put him in a temp. container. What's the easiest way to get rid of it if it is aptasia with it bein on the snail shell?

[GaryP]

Did I say something about being paranoid in an earlier post in this thread? What is it they say, "you're not paranoid if they are really after you?" Guess what I found today? Aiptasia Of all places it was growing on the side of my sun coral (Tubastrea). OK, I guess I'll go look for a copper banded.

Gary

[Instar]

Lana

My tank is a 46 bowfront. It does have lots of swimming room - I have 60 lbs LR but I tried hard to make sure my fishies had room ro "run". Will a copperband survive in that size a tank? ... How fast do they grow?
Your 46 bow is about as large as a 55. GARF keeps copperbands in a lot of their systems. They become accustomed to their surroundings and are very personable. Mine both perfer to eat from my hand. The one will even hit my fingers sometimes. Happiness is a combination of things; tank asthetics, lots of places to get to and look into, caves, linear swimming distance, water quality and good food. The main trouble around here is getting a healthy one, about 3 inches for your tank. Younger ones do much better, but not small ones. 3 inches is good. They put on some weight, but, are not real fast growers from what I see. You gotta feed them well. Frozen brine can not be their main diet and they don't do flake food usually. Do as much research as you can on them before you try it and then realize that some info you dig up about them does not apply to the ones you want. You want the ones from the Indonesian area. One should be okay in your 46 bow. They're cool and beautiful. You already know what they eat.
GaryP
Gotta get a healthy copperband. It cost me about $200.00 to get all the parasites off mine and get them eating. Wasn't counting on all that. Use a good sized QT tank unless you know for sure when you get it.
I had literally thousands of aiptasias when I first got my copperband. Little tiny ones growing on a finger sponge, right on the side of some zooanthids and right on the side of some zooanthid swiftis. They copperband is like a surgeon removing the little aiptasias. He never even made the zoos close up when he plucked the little tiny aiptasias off them. And, the copperband tended a coral I got that was really basically dead. Kept it from getting a protozoan or bacterial infection. The coral came in real nasty stinky water. It was a serious cesspool in there and it was toxic. The tissue and polyps were flaking off. The copperband took the dead pieces off, carefully, not harming the very few live polyp pieces of the Pocolopora Eydoxi. Today, that coral is about half regenerated. I watched for hours and said that copperband is going to save that coral's life and so it did. I finally decided to try yellow polyps in there. I am so glad I didn't listen to the experts this time. My yellow polyps are awesome in there. I even have 4 large hawaiian feather dusters in the tank. They are well entrenched, missing a few feathers, but, doing well. And you probably already saw my night shot of the tubastrea and copperband. If I had an aiptasia on one snail, I would figure there were lot of little ones in there unless it came with the snail. Take the snail out and scrub it with a brand new toothbrush under the fawcet to get it all off. Keep your finger over the snails operculum while you do that. If its not the only one, its not worth it. An aiptasia was brave enough to crawl out from under a rock this morning. It lasted about 30 minutes. Once he saw it, it was gone in one bite. Nice piece of work on the aoecels!
Joshua
I really know squat about this clear coral eating flatworm. Makes me watch very closely since I put clear ones in my tank. I saw the write up about those things on a GARF publication.
Manny
Small? I have some with near 4 inch stalks and 3 inch tentacle spans. But, I am raising them too. I've had them 2 to 3 inches in a couple tanks. Big or small, they sting the tar out of many corals, small seahorses, small fish and clams. They start out really small.

[Lana]

Thanks for the worm link, Joshua; I now know I have PEANUT worms!! Real shy little guys, but boy can they move like lightning when they want to!

[GaryP]

Wow! Larry, you are a font of information. I just wish I knew you and there was a MAAST when I got started in this hobby 8 yrs. ago instead of being forced to listen to the intellectually challenged advice I got from the folks at some of the LFS's in SA. This is certainly an example of why an organization like MAAST is so important. Its amazing how much the internet has done for the hobby, especially when it comes to sharing of info.

I have been doing a lot of research on copper bands in the last day or so. I had not seen anything about parasites or the Indonesian wrinkle. I have only seen a few Aiptasia near my Tubastrea but I definitely want to nip this problem in the bud, so to speak. The only coral I have in the tank with the Aiptasia that I might be concerned that the copper banded might nip at is a tubifora that I got from Garf and it is growing like crazy right now. The remainder of the corals are a large leather toadstool, plate coral, the sun coral, a very large open brain, and various mushrooms. After he finishes his job in there I night have to move him to my SPS tanks that also has a lot of zoos and green & yellow sun polyps. What do you feed your copper banded? A prepared butterfly food?

Thanks for all the info. I REALLY appreciate it.

Gary

[Instar]

Joshua
That link to the page about the flat worms also includes great pics of the coral eating flat worms. Hard to see little boogers.
GaryP
Did you mean tubipora coral? Common name?

One of mine was on a roll and sampled a piece of a gorgonian polyp once. He never came back for more. I did see one nip at a little rock anemone from Port Aransas when it was deflated a few times, but, that anemone is alive and well without any evidence he actually was after that and not something on its surface. I have a variety of polyps in with them. There is even one ugly little hard coral that has a sweeper polyp that looks almost exactly like an aiptasia. I've never even seen the copperbands look at the thing at all.

Occassionally I feed them live mosquito larva grown in my back yard. Or frozen white mosquito larva soaked in Seachem Reef Complete vitamins (has a fair amount of Vitamin C). Or live mosquito larva from my backyard, frozen mysis shrimp, marine cuisine, Live clams and/or Live black mussels from the grocery store. All the fish like to get in on that banquet with the live bivalves. You must open them with a pocket knife and cut the shell retactor mussel. Never use one that doesn't close its shell or smells rotten. They cost 20 or 30 cents a piece and are rich in Vitamin A and that keeps the fish from going blind. I did use blood worms at first, but, not sure that was good for the cleaner shrimp. Lost the cleaner shrimp and since there were several events in my tank, I am not sure why. I was suspicious of the blood worms but have no real evidence to support me in that. I used the natural method to get the parasites off them because they can, like any butterfly, be sensitive to copper and formalin. That stuff is a liver killer anyway and I wanted to avoid that. They are always hungry, but, most of the time they have to deal with my twice a day feeding. Now and then they get more from overflow when I feed my tubastrea. They'll eat about anything. They'll take a piece of flake food once in a while just because its in my fingers, but, I haven't tried to get them on that. I don't do too much live mosquito larva because I don't want them to get finicky again. They get the variety just in case I can't get something one day. Like live mussels -they are not always available. Some people have reported copperbands starve after the aiptasias are gone. At first I really had to work on it to get them to eat. I may be crazy, but, at first I was feeding the aiptasia to get these foods in the copperbands mouth. They started on all that stuff with an aiptasia wrap like a pig in a blanket. My copperbands were very thin and one looked like it was literally starving to death. One of them had its forehead get very pinched over the eyes and it looked like death. Today they are fat, active and healthy. They are shipped in pretty bad shape sometimes. I worked with the diver at Reeftopia to get a variety of things in that they could try. Little feather dusters were the only thing that worked well, and of course the mussels but shipped in live from Florida they are about 5 or 6 dollars each. I kept those bivalves (actually turkey wings) alive. Copperbands really love a split open black mussel. One day I got the idea to try live mosquito larva. I used garlic extract the day before to get whatever feeding response going, then tucked some cluster dusters just out of reach behind a coral head to make them nuts. Then in went the live mosquito larva. With the feeding response so triggered and unsatisfied, that started them eating the mosquitos. After a few days I started working on switching them to frozen foods. They still had aiptasia to graze on all day long. I guess it took about a month for them to clean out the couple thousand aiptasias. The only ones left are the ones they can't get to.
So, the foods initially were a quite a bit different than what they eat today. I didn't think they would ever take frozen brine shrimp. One of them wouldn't even eat live brine. I thought that was unusual as they eat tiny crustaceans. They do have variations between different fish. Its not that I wanted them to eat frozen brine, but, it is nice to add a little to their diet.

[Instar]

An additional note about feeding: They really like a plankton shrimp, like mysis only larger. Maybe its krill, but, all I can get locally is embedded in an agar gell of some kind. They don't like that gel too much. The krill in Marine Cuisine is great because it has some substance to it and its not in gel. They love those kinds of shrimp.

[sholzrichter]

This is good to know. I always thought that copperband can't be kept in a reef tank. I thought it would eat all kind of corals. I have some aiptasia in my tank. I have been trying to get rid of them by injecting Calcium into them, but it isn't working. I also heard that Peppermint shrimp will eat them. However, my peppermint shrimps have become my cleaner shrimps' dinner instead. I might have to go buy a copperband.

[manny]

Manny
Small? I have some with near 4 inch stalks and 3 inch tentacle spans. But, I am raising them too. I've had them 2 to 3 inches in a couple tanks. Big or small, they sting the tar out of many corals, small seahorses, small fish and clams. They start out really small.

Larry, the thing I'm seein is maybe like 1 or 2 mm big. It "lives" in a small hole in my mex turbos shell. It looks just like the picture you posted but you can't see the base cause it's in the hole. Is it possible for a baby aptasia to be living on my snail or is it something else?

[Instar]

I have a bunch of pictures of copperbands on my reef along with all kinds of polyps. It still blows my mind at how wrong the "experts" are in the literature. But, they do eat a couple of things that some people like, naturally. I don't really mind if they kill an astrea snail now and then. I'll trade an astrea for an aiptasia any time. And feather dusters, well they just have to be hidden or blocked by some coral orsomething, if I want them in a large reef. My next experiment with them it to see if I can keep a clam in there with them. I have seen it done in a picture. I'll let you know. They don't bother the spondylactiis oysters at all and those are exposed enough at feeding time for a serious bite if it was something they were prone to trying. Hasn't happened at all with mine. I must stress that these are the Indonesian Copperbands.
Manny, if I just had one in a snail shell and thats all it amounted to, I would take the shell out and do something with it until I knew. Lots of things start out small with little polyps that are not aiptasia.
Be forewarned though, it is a trick to get a copperband healthy and converted to frozen foods. You gotta really be dedicated to it. And I wouldn't try to keep more than one, unless you keep a group of them all put in the tank at the same time. The age we get them at usually is pre-puberty and they are serious about being lone rogues at that age. Two of them are likely to fight to the death. This might not hold true in a 500 gallon or larger tank, but how many people have those sitting around?