Aptasia Prob

[mattheyn]

Hey guys, hope you all can recommend some ideas. I am starting to get a few aptasia here and there in my tank. They aren't really posing a problem yet, however, I would like to keep them in check. My pseudochromus loves to eat peppermint shrimp and since it is a reef butterflies are out of the question. Do you know if anything else eats them? I would like to stay away from chemical treatments :?

[Richard]

Some people have had success injecting them with kalkwasser. If you only have a few I would either leave them alone or remove those rocks that they are on and deal with them separate from your main tank. Sometimes they spread like wildfire when people start messing with them.
Be careful about using some of the commercial treatments for aiptasia.

[Texreefer]

i have had excellent success in the past using a syringe and injecting calcium into them!

[matt]

Nuke 'em with the KW, but don't expect that to eradicate them. They'll come back, believe me. As Richard said, it's a good idea to take the rock out, then kill them, then "cauterize" or burn the entire area of the rock they were occupying, and try to remove every trace of the dead anemone.

As far as natural control, the best hope is the bergia nudibranch. however, you have to culture these critters, and then introduce rocks with aiptasias into their tank. Just putting a few in your reef will probably not work; they'll get eaten by a fish or shrimp or hermit.

Come on, MAAST members! Who's going to culture these nudibranches for the club members? Somebody step up!

Matt

[Bigreefer]

I just a few... i pointed a 201 power head at them for a bout a week. They haven't showed back up. that was three weeks ago.


Jason

[Sherri]

I heat my KW before injecting or either carefully squirting the thick mixture right on the front of them...they just melt away...but they do come back - a royal pain.

Sherri

[MikeP]

Peppermint shrimp, longnose raccoon or copperband butterfly. I bought a CBB local since it was plump and eating frozen and while I haven't seen him doing it all the aiptasia are gone from visible surfaces - they will do a number on feather dusters too - oh yeah and yesterday he started picking on my lovely open brain so I threw that in my nano.

Peppermints are hit or miss - make sure you get the tropical atlantic species Lysmata wurdemanni instead of the pacific one. I would get at least 4 or 5 too in an average tank - will take them a while to find them but once they do they will eat all but the very large aiptasia which you will still have to kalk/boilingwater inject.

[Stephen]

Is aptasia the same as "rock anemones"?

Just curious.

[reefer74]

Since you say you have a peppermint shrimp eating fish, then maybe this would not be a feasible solution. Still it may be one worth mentioning. If you are able to introduce some shrimp, I have found that by initially injecting the aiptasia with kalkwasser, once the shrimp are introduced, it sort of stimulates a response from them. As the aiptasia start to die from the kalkwasser, the shrimp just sort of start hunting them out. It has worked for me in the past, so it may be the way to go for you.


Johnny G.