What option is best for ridding aiptasia from tank?

[Imlovinit]

Hey everyone my wife and I are new to saltwater and this forum. We have recently set up a 28 g nano tank. Currently it contains 20lbs live sand and 20 lbs of live rock. Also there are two blue damsels in there to help with the cycle. The tank has been running for a week, I have noticed that some aiptasia have hitch hiked in from a piece of LR. There is about five little ones so far and don't want it to spread. My question is what method is the best to rid of it from my tank?
1. Peppermint shrimp... Are these reef safe? We are looking to get into soft corals.
2. Injecting lime juice... Do you inject it into the aiptasia or squirt it close? How much of this is safe for the tank?
3. Kalk... I have heard this somewhere not quite sure what this is?

Thanks and any start up advice is muchly appreciated and or any other alternative options on getting rid of the aiptasia

[Lampshade]

I just went and did another round of injections of lime juice in my tank. I only use 5ml at a time, but that's more than enough for 10+ apasia/majono's. I'm just picking off the last few now that have come in on various live rock/frags. Seems to have worked great, i went from probably 20 majono's/5 apasia down to 0 apasia and maybe 1-2 majono's left.

I inject right into the mouth, make sure the apasia fills like a baloon and you'll never see it again. If you leak any juice out before you get the needle inside it will shrivel up and you'll probably not get a good injection after that. If i notice them baloon out, i know they will never come back.

[Wayne]

I got rid of my aptasia with both peppermint shrimp (they are safe with my corals) and lemon juice with a fine needle.

I zapped all the big ones that I could see and get at with the lemon juice, make sure the needle penetrates there mouth or stem and get them good! My aptasia is gone and the peppermints just scavange for food now :wink:

[fencer]

In the end...10 peppermint shrimp

[Myka]

I like to use a Kalk paste (cheap when lots of Aiptasia) or Joe's Juice. I find both work really well. Kalk is short for Kalkwasser which is a powdered calcium and alkalinity supplement, you mix just enough water with it to make a paste, and then inject it or just syringe it on top of the Aiptasia.

[pelle31]

I've used Joe's juice,Peppermint shrimp and sodium Hydroxide. IMO sometimes the peppermints are hit and miss at least the ones were that I bought locally.

[doch]

If you can, pull the rock out, and torch the SOB's with a lighter! I guarantee you that they will not come back! When you torch them, just wait until a)they pop or b) they turn black.

Works everytime... I've yet to have had to do it twice.

[cale262]

I've also used a product called "Aptasia X" from redsea and have had great success with it.

[naesco]

For a small tank, one peppermint shrimp
Acclimate her very slowly

[AquaticFinatic]

Just like doch said ........ You have such a small tank and amount of rock that you shouldn't even bother with any thing else. I had some on three pieces of rock and all I did was make a note of where they were and use a BBQ lighter to torch them. I am now and have been aiptasia free ever since. I have tried the all other methods and this is the best.

[Imlovinit]

Just like doch said ........ You have such a small tank and amount of rock that you shouldn't even bother with any thing else. I had some on three pieces of rock and all I did was make a note of where they were and use a BBQ lighter to torch them. I am now and have been aiptasia free ever since. I have tried the all other methods and this is the best.

K, so I tried this, hope it works and I didn't torch something cool :eek:

[daniella3d]

I don't know how to get rid of mine. Got peppermint shrimps and it did nothing, got a copperband butterfly and he does not eat them, tried Aiptasia X and it does not kill them and they just return after a week. My next option if I can find them will be berghia nudibranchs.

The most anoying are those that are popping in the middle of my zoanthids colonies and stopping the zoanthids from opening.

[reefwars]

I don't know how to get rid of mine. Got peppermint shrimps and it did nothing, got a copperband butterfly and he does not eat them, tried Aiptasia X and it does not kill them and they just return after a week. My next option if I can find them will be berghia nudibranchs.

The most anoying are those that are popping in the middle of my zoanthids colonies and stopping the zoanthids from opening.



daniella i was plagued with them i had over 300 heads in a 33g check out my zoa tank journal and look at the pics they speak for themselves, i have a snowflake eel so shrimp isnt an option, my tank is too small for any butterfly, too many for lemon juice or kalk...............all my zoas were dying not many opened it was sad for sure. i had success with a matted filefish in my 110g reeftank and figured i would try a juvie for my 33g.

unlike my adult one i had who picked at nothing the juvie nips alot and even wiped out a half dozen heads of nuclear greens and rpe's i had on plugs. all in all though just a few weeks later and im aiptasia free minus a few small ones hes finishing up.

so i lost a few nice ones but recovered my whole collection i say a win in the end.



i also tried breeding nudis its not hard to do but they dont work fast and they will work even slower on a bigger tank i stopped after my second batch of young, they were put into another 30g tank that still had aiptasia the day i tore it down and there were still some nudis to be found:)

[Nebthet]

I think I found the trick, at least for my tank, when using joe's juice or aiptasia x.

First you need to follow the instructions and drop a little in their mouth and cover the oral disk. Once that starts to disolve, shove the metal needle end into body of the aiptasia through where the oral disc was to the bottom and squirt the stuff all the way through it.

This is the only way I found, using these products that actually works to get rid of the whole anemone.

[daniella3d]

The aiptasia X product I used could not go through a needle as it was too tick. It would simply block the needle. I had to use just a seringe and just drop it on the oral disk, but a week later the aiptasia was back.

I wish there was this tool available with electricity to zap them. From the bottle I bought there was no metal needle.


shove the metal needle end into body of the aiptasia through where the oral disc was to the bottom and squirt the stuff all the way through it.

This is the only way I found, using these products that actually works to get rid of the whole anemone.

[HL649]

When I use Aptasia-X I cover most of the aptasia with the solution. In about 1/2 hour the aptasia has mostly melted away. It definitely does not come back. On some of the bigger ones I don't get enough on them and have to come back and treat them again.

My new tank that I am setting up is going to have sterilized rock. There is not going to be any aptasia in it!

[daniella3d]

Ok but what about the pods and other liveform that are benificial? as well as the good bacterias?

When I use Aptasia-X I cover most of the aptasia with the solution. In about 1/2 hour the aptasia has mostly melted away. It definitely does not come back. On some of the bigger ones I don't get enough on them and have to come back and treat them again.

My new tank that I am setting up is going to have sterilized rock. There is not going to be any aptasia in it!

[reefwars]

When I use Aptasia-X I cover most of the aptasia with the solution. In about 1/2 hour the aptasia has mostly melted away. It definitely does not come back. On some of the bigger ones I don't get enough on them and have to come back and treat them again.

My new tank that I am setting up is going to have sterilized rock. There is not going to be any aptasia in it!



sterile rock or not the beauty about aiptasia and mojanos are they are the BEST hitchhikers out there, you can try every trick in the book and all it takes is a baby head to be stuck in a crevice on a coral frag that enters your tank unknown and spreads in no time.

the best defense is knowing how to deal with them, manual removal works great(lemon juice,joes juice,kalk,aiptasia x,lime juice,boling water)when there are managable numbers but once you hit plague status theres not a needle in the world or a solution that will get them all as some of the baby heads are about 1/5 the size of a green pea:):)

once you hit plague status you really need to consider something that eats them:):)

[reefwars]

Ok but what about the pods and other liveform that are benificial? as well as the good bacterias?




thats always my concern too, im weary about adding store bought solutions to my tank on such a large basis, 1 head or half a dozen then fine......300 and thats alot of aiptasia x or lemon juice or kalk or anything to be adding to my system of just 33 g:)

[kien]

The best method in my opinion is to smother the SOB. Works great with a lot of hitchikers. Smother them with epoxy. I recently layed down a mat of epoxy 5"x3" to smother some Xenia and GSP that got out of control. Works with mushrooms too! LOL. In some cases you may have to irritate them first so that they deflate. Or in the case of Xenia and mushrooms, scrape their heads off. Then, spread out a sheet of epoxy to the affected area. If any managed to peek through just repeat. After a few weeks I'll maybe take off the epoxy if it is unsightly. The area underneath is remarkably clean :D

Aiptasia in particular I have found quite easy to remove with this approach. A little ball of epoxy, smother over aiptasia, done.

Anyway, yes Doug, this is why I buy so much freaking epoxy :lol:

[soapy]

Sometimes if the aiptasia does not have its foot buried in a hole you can suck them out with a turkey baster. I got lots this way. Just be careful not to break them up, they reproduce from the little pieces.

[Aquattro]

I've used all the methods mentioned, and from now on, I'll only use a matted filefish. One little guy cleaned my tank of plague proportions in less than 3 weeks. And the odd one that pops back up gets eaten pretty quickly. Once they're all gone, he ate mysis, so not a critter that will starve after the pests are gone.

[asylumdown]

I've been fighting the war with aiptasia in my 90 gallon for about a year. I was brand new to the hobby when I started this tank and was actually excited (lord what an idiot I was) when these 'cool' little anemones started popping out of one of the rocks I bought. Once I learned what they were, I tried aiptasia-X on the biggest of them, but they were on a base piece of rock at an awkward angle so I couldn't get them completely.

Apparently, my botched attempts to remove them triggered a mass reproduction, and over the course of months, thousands (I do mean thousands) started popping up everywhere. On the glass, on the overflow, on every single rock, under corals, in the sump. They spread so far and so fast I couldn't get all of them.

I've tried: Lemon juice, aiptasia-X, joes juice, berghia nudibranchs (probably 700 bucks worth), peppermint shrimp and finally when I took all my rock out to catch two expensive wrasses that were fighting this week, I bought a propane torch and cooked as many as I could find. The smell was disgusting, but oh so satisfying. I tried a lighter, but a normal lighter doesn't get hot enough fast enough to really work

If you miss even a small piece of the foot, they can come back. I've blasted some with lemon juice (injecting with a small gauge syringe) and watched it melt over a couple of days, only to find 3 nearly microscopic versions growing around the perimeter of where the parent had been a week later.

I find a combination of lemon juice injected right in to the mouth or body works, but it works better if you carefully squirt lemon juice al over the tentacles as a second step as well. In close proximity the acidity seems to be able to denature their proteins before it dilutes too much. I usually then smother the collapsed aiptasia with kalk paste to really seal in the death.

The key is getting them before they spread, so if you're going to blast them, try and take the rock out to do it. When they're disturbed they can launch millions of cells in to the water to start clones on all your other rock, and the super tiny ones are too small to inject with anything, so you have to cover them with kalk paste (which kills everything else under it as well). If I had a time machine I would go back and take that one piece of rock out and boil it, even though it would have meant taking my tank apart.

Because of aiptasia I'm building the entire reef structure of the 320 gallon tank I'm building in my new house out of dry eco rock, and only putting in a couple pieces of new, religiously quarantined live rock to seed coralline algae.

I never thought I could hate an animal as much as I hate aiptasia.

[donlite]

I have made my own, but you can buy a aptasia zapper. It has a rod with an electrode on the and when you push the button it cooks it in about 1 second. This is the most fun I have ever had killing somethig:lol: Just google it.

[bauder1986]

just pour a half of cup of turpentine and you should be golden:razz:

[globaldesigns]

I know, I know.... Start over, and use Eco-reefer rock! HEHE, a free plug here for them.

Just kidding, on a serious note, I bought 2 nudis and thought it was a waste of money. Well I am wrong, I have many now. Lots are like 1.5 inches long, lots of babies and lots of swirl egg colonies. And the hundreds/thousands of aptaisa in my sump are almost gone. Maybe have about 10-15% left to what was there prior. So I recommend the nudi's, you just have to be patient with them.

Also, I am not selling any yet, so please don't ask... But will be soon, once my aptaisa farm in the sump is gone. Don't want the critters to die, so will eventually hunt them down, quarantine them and sell them.

[daniella3d]

wow, that's scary. Now I am scared I will never get rid of mine.

Apparently, my botched attempts to remove them triggered a mass reproduction, and over the course of months, thousands (I do mean thousands) started popping up everywhere. On the glass, on the overflow, on every single rock, under corals, in the sump. They spread so far and so fast I couldn't get all of them.

I never thought I could hate an animal as much as I hate aiptasia.

[reefwars]

wow, that's scary. Now I am scared I will never get rid of mine.


daniella why not try the matted filefish?? they can be turned to frozen very easily , some dont nip at all, they are very hardy , and they are awesome looking.....not to mention they are aiptasia destroying machines!!!!!:):)

[daniella3d]

I am afraid for my $$$ prized zoanthids. I know some people who's zoanthids disapeared eated by those fish. I would be afraid that before turning to frozen they would make a short work of my beautiful zoanthids.

I am also hoping that my copperband will eventualy find a taste for them. It is still small and acclimating so I will give it a chance.

If the copperband manage to find them and start to eat them, then the filefish would be too much competition.

daniella why not try the matted filefish?? they can be turned to frozen very easily , some dont nip at all, they are very hardy , and they are awesome looking.....not to mention they are aiptasia destroying machines!!!!!:):)

[reefwars]

I am afraid for my $$$ prized zoanthids. I know some people who's zoanthids disapeared eated by those fish. I would be afraid that before turning to frozen they would make a short work of my beautiful zoanthids.

I am also hoping that my copperband will eventualy find a taste for them. It is still small and acclimating so I will give it a chance.

If the copperband manage to find them and start to eat them, then the filefish would be too much competition.



i would give him time once he finds them and discovers they are food i bet he will be good to go, and fwiw copperbands are just as riskey when it comes to zoas and alot of them discover the taste while finding aiptasia in between their heads and then discover a taste to zoas:):)

[reefwars]

I am afraid for my $$$ prized zoanthids. I know some people who's zoanthids disapeared eated by those fish. I would be afraid that before turning to frozen they would make a short work of my beautiful zoanthids.

I am also hoping that my copperband will eventualy find a taste for them. It is still small and acclimating so I will give it a chance.

If the copperband manage to find them and start to eat them, then the filefish would be too much competition.




its also been my experience that the filefish nips at zoas and lps not really devouring them like the aiptasia. mine did eat some polyps of nuclear greens and rpe's but they were none the worse for recovery:):) he mostly like the candycanes flesh for some reason and when he nips you dont even notice a chunk or anything infact my candycanes seem unbothered by it:):)