nuisance glass anemones (Aiptasia).

[verynewatthis]

okay i got a great deal on some live rock...75lbs for 150 bucks, but i have some Aiptasia on them...so i got a pepperment shrimp and droped him in...i know they hide in the day..but i have only seen him out once sence then...and i fear he may be dead..i know i have to get rid of the aiptasia cuz one is making my zoo's mad, and that just wont due...plus i have found some baby once in there and i dont need a outbreak..i will get a new shrimp or two but is there anything else that eats this stuff...cuz it has to get gone soon....thz rich hancock

[jaded]

there are lots of ways to deal with them... what size tank (is it the 55 with the huge bubble?), what are the inhabitants of the tank, any other details would help the pros here to give you the best advise

I dumped 15 peppermint shrimp in my cousins 175 and 7 in the 46... after a month I had just a few in each tank but the aptasia were under control. I used vinegar in a syringe to kill the ones I could get to. I've heard great things about using kalk paste to "feed" the little buggers. If you apply it right they will take it in and die without disturbing anything around them. there are nudibanchs' butterfly fish, etc... that can also be helpful

[Magneto]

One little odd aiptasia eatter that I have never heard anyone else mention. I have a bi-color angel that cleaned out my 75 gallon of an out break of them. I don't know if I got the only one that ever ate em or what. But 2 weeks after I put it in every one of em that wasnt in the sump or over flow was gone.

[jaded]

did he move on to your corals after that???

[verynewatthis]

yes they are in the tank with the bubble, it is a 80gal, it has cleaner shrimp, yellow tank, naso tang, two clowns,blue line gobby, scotter blenny and a few more,, and got a arrow crab, and coral bandet...as far as coral just the bubble and a few zoos and mushroms...lots of snail and hermets..so i guess one peppermint was alittle underkill huh?...lol....rich hancock

[jaded]

I'm not sure if I was led quite right... Allen may have been leading me to overkill with so many, but hey... it helped! Like so much else in this hobby, and life for that matter it was a combo of things that eventually got me over the hump. Now that I have a new tank with all new aptasia to deal with I think I'll try to kill them with the Kalk before I buy a single peppermint shrimp. Although I'd like to get a few Berghia verrucicornis just to see what they will do

http://www.seaslugforum.net/images/m6472a.jpg

[verynewatthis]

wow i think that thing would scare the wife...lol...i just looked a saltwaterfish.com at the butterflys and they say that they are not reef safe....i dont want to get anything that will hurt my stuff...i dont have much now and i sure as heck dont want any less...dont tell anyone but i tried a steak knife last night and this morning they looked like they were all giving me the finger......rich hancock

[Instar]

Come to the meeting on Sunday, April 10th. Its about Aiptasia Control. All these solutions will be discussed and some you didn't know about will also be discussed.

[jaded]

I cant make the Austin meeting this time... maybe we could have a forum with the minutes posted???

[verynewatthis]

ya ya me too ,,,i can make it....i can't get a kitchen pass for that far...i live in AZ...and the wife wont let me go....her and her rules....lol......i dont mind reading thu....if yall dont mind typeing....thz...rich hancock

[don-n-sa]

What worked for me was Joe's juice...it worked on majono and aptasia, they were dead in minutes and it was easy to use.

I know someone will come on here and say that it is just kalk paste which it probably is but it was only $10 and it comes with an applicator so I would purchase it to support the LFS and the inventor.

[Instar]

Too bad ya'll can't make it. There's going to be a very cool raffle that has to do with aiptasia controls too.

[verynewatthis]

so can anyone recomend a fish or two that are reef safe.,,,and how many peppermints do i need???thz...rich hancock

[Instar]

Peppermints are opportunistic omnivores. That means they can kill lots of things and may not even look at your aiptasia. If you have bubble corals, do NOT use peppermints. They are definitely not reef safe as reported.

I don't know if the web gurus of this site can make the "reef" notes for the meeting viewable afterwards or not. I'll ask about it.

[Magneto]

did he move on to your corals after that???
nope never caught him nibbling on em. They are supposed to like sponges but still have some of those.

[newhomes4reef]

my luck sucks. My first weekend day off is coming up on Sunday...the 17. I so want to make it to a meeting!! Especially one that covers such a great topic! I just zapped a dozen aptasia the other day, but unfortunately I didn't discover one of them until it had "stung" my candy cane coral...now I've lost 3 head off it!! Ugh! It's time for me to go fishing again for those **** peppermints...I have two of them in my 145 that i just can't catch. I want to try my luck on the Berghia now too.

[jaded]

build a trap... I just cut a hole in the bottom of a ziplock throw away container (tupperware knockoff) and inserted a tube I made from clear plastic sheeting (like the clear folder you would present a report in) . Make the tube wide on the outside and narrow on the inside. Tape in place. Inject some brine shrimp in the tupperware thing and wait. You can even tie a string to the tupperware to yank it our fast, but once thier in they aint easily gettin' out

[Ram_Puppy]

I have also read (in last months CORAL) that peppermints will munch on bhergia as well. Not sure if this is true, but, I think it is a forgone conclusion, bhergia are the weapon of choice when dealing with Aiptasia. If you can nail one or two with joes juice or something on a new import before it becomes an outbreak, and you do indeed in killing ALL Of each anemone, they that is great. If you can't, or you are allready in an outbreak, ya gotta go bhergia, or if your tank won't hate you for it, Copper banded butterflies.. .(which will eat featherdusters, and your clams (THough i htink larry kepps clams and cbb's together...) CBB's IMHO should not be purchase for aiptasia control though, you should have an interest in the fish first.

[GaryP]

I've seen Larry's talk for this weekend and you are stealing all of his best material. :)

We'll just skip to the end of the movie and tell everyone how it ends.

[verynewatthis]

well i guess ill try the :joes juice : but i fear i have to many...not big ones but small ones...aBout 1/4 inch...i got about 15 of them that size. that i have found so far and about 7 big ones...about 3 inches...so maybe i can kill the big ones, and wait tell the little onces get big so i can feed them and kill them too...is this the way to go???....thz...rich hancock

[Ram_Puppy]

if you have found that many Rich, you have more. I bet Larry can ship bhergia to you.

[MikeDeL]

Dont wait until they grow big. Just zap a handfull of them every couple days. After a while you will get rid of the large majority of them, and they will be alot easier to control. I had a ton of baby aptasia awhile back. I hit the large ones with joes juice and let the peppermints eat all of the small ones. I rarely see an aptasia anymore, and when I do I just zap it. If I had to do it over though I wouldnt have added the peppermint. They ate alot more then just the aptasia.

[Instar]

I have also read (in last months CORAL) that peppermints will munch on bhergia as well. Not sure if this is true,

Confirmed true.

And Ram Puppy, thats correct, I can ship young egg laying Berghia most anywhere.

[Instar]

BTW, I keep CBB with clams. There's a couple tricks to it. First acclimate the clam in a place where you can protect it from the CBB like on a shelf or rock where you can fence it off with an egg crate wall or box. Keep it primarily under the actinic light area for a few days. Then, after its done stressing out over the move, take the fence or box away. After this, place the clam anywhere but NOT on the sand bed. Anywhere in the reef stucture. So long as its not on the sand, at least at first, then it should be fine. CBB's like fresh live black mussels split open and rinsed, rubber banded to a rock on the bottom. After the CBB tame down and are used to eating frozen foods for a while, the clams can go about anywhere with some of them. Remember though, individual reef keeper technique varies so much that nothing is absolute. You gotta keep a close eye on them at first and not over react to curiosity. A CBB may even take a taste of a Maxima once or twice just to see what it is. Don't over react, it normally passes so long as the clam is healthy and not in the sand. I've never had a problem keeping them together in multiple instances. However, this is not to encourage everyone to go get a CBB. Most of them don't make it so its best left to the very advanced reefer.

[verynewatthis]

[/quote]And Ram Puppy, thats correct, I can ship young egg laying Berghia most anywhere.


okay now i feel stupid cuz i dont know what Berghias are..can anyone give me a 1 0 1 class on them...???....and as far as how many aiptasias i have...its alot more then i found before...now that im looking for them i find them everywhere.....stupid little things...will killing a bunch at a time hurt my tank???....rich hancock[/quote]

[Ed]

Berghias are Nudibranchs that eat aiptasia.

Be careful about killing the Aiptasia with calk paste. Too much too soon can cause a PH spike.

HTH.

-Ed

[jaded]

Im interested in a few Berghias... can I find them local? What do they cost? Are they good for maintenance or will they die off without aptasia to eat? Anything they are not compatable with?

[GaryP]

Larry (Instar) breeds Berghia and you can get them from me. Finding them on the internet can be rough, much less locally (besides Larry).

You'll never completely eliminate aiptasia. There will always be some in your tank somewhere for them to eat. They may even be so small you never see them.

[SuperXdude]

I use Pickling lime paste to blast my aiptasia. Small ones are easier to kill. The larger one is on the 4th or 5th time being blasted with it, but each time he is smaller and takes longer to grow back.

Maybe it is working?

[SuperXdude]

I use Pickling lime paste to blast my aiptasia. Small ones are easier to kill. The larger one is on the 4th or 5th time being blasted with it, but each time he is smaller and takes longer to grow back.

Maybe it is working?

[Ram_Puppy]

I hate the little buggers Rich, I got just a few off a frag, and ignored them for a while, I thought "I have good water quality, they won't spread." LIES!

I had some bhergia from Larry (instar) that were doing a good job of controlling the infestation, I would say turning it back, but when my tank overheated, I think they were the first to go. :(

Soon as the 115 goes up, more bhergia will become resident # 2 (right behind the aiptasia) :)

[Viet-Tin]

Ive been wondering how hardy are these bhergai things. Ive been wanting to try them but i dont want them to die after theyve eatin all the aiptasia.

[SuperXdude]

I've been blasting my aiptasia and it's not working. (Pickling lime)

Just noticed it growing back, along with two or three little baby ones right next to him

[Viet-Tin]

Is there anyway for them bhergia to reach cedar park? Id like to try one.

[JimD]

Go to the meeting tomorrow, never know what you might find.

[Viet-Tin]

Ill try and make it. ive been wanting to attend one of these meetings but never had a chance to.

[verynewatthis]

can someone tape the meeting???....ill buy the tape and pay for shippinng... thz...rich hancock