Help - I am being infested
 

OK I need some big time help. It seems my tank is being over run by a hitch hiking weed. At least I call it a weed. It looks like the picture on page 180 of Aquarium Corals by Borneman but the base is brown not white; also it is in single colony not batches like the picture. The whole thing is brown and it cannot be killed. There are also no tubeworms in my tank when I touch it shrinks back into the rock/sand and I cannot get it out

It all started about 6 months ago when I saw the 1st one. I wanted to get rid of it but my wife said it looked cute and she wanted to keep it. Well that one turned into many.

I pulled out 1/2 my rock cleaned it off using a scrub brush and tap water then re-inserted it back into the tank. Now it is everywhere including on the glass and my tank looks like a weed farm.

I have not been doing my regular maintenance for the past couple of months due to new baby, couple of jobs etc.

Any help is really appreciated – I would get rid of the fish and start fresh but I have a few corals that I am scared to give to anyone cause I don’t want to contaminate their tank.

I have another 30 G tank that I could rig up the corals and fish in sand then dump my corals sand and somehow clean my rock but how do I start the water over again and how can I clean off my softies without damaging them?

Can't find my camera to take pictures.

Help
Patrick

I think you're talking about aptaisia. Get a peppermint shrimp. Problem solved.

Reef,

I'm done to store tomorrow and if it works I'm buying you a beer the next time your in town. (or tea if thats your liking)
:biggrin:

coffee's good. Some people say that they didn't have any luck, but I've bought 7 peppermints over the last two years and every one of them ate the aiptasia. If the tank is heavily infested, it could take up to 2 weeks to clear out.

Patrick,

Pep's will definately do the job.

If you want to encourage them. minimize the feedings of the tank. Starve 'em into submission.

My wife was doing some reading on this topic and she found out that the shrimp will not touch anything bigger than 1" high. The stuff in my tank is 3 - 4" high.

Is there any truth to what she read?

TKS

they did the ones in that were over 3" tall in my tank.

Steve

ate all mine, even the big ones.

OK I have added a total of 3 pepermint shrimp. 1 2 weeks ago and 2 yesterday but I just can't see them taking care of the "lawn" that has grown in my tank.

I heard a butterfly fish would eat the apitasia. I know I only have a 33G but can I get a small butterfly and trade it back in a year or maybe by then I will have my 75G tank.

I really am getting desperate if something dose not work soon.

Maybe I should take out most of rocks and give it a bath in high concentrated calcium, this is suppose to burn it off. I know that I would also be killing my rock but I don't know what else to do?

Some people have had success injecting kalkwasser into the aptasias with a syringe. A search on Reefcentral should give you a good number of related results.

what kinda of pepermint shrimp did you add? were the tails red or black?

Steve

It looked red to me.

I was just on reefcentral and read up about Hydrogen Peroxide so if the PS don't work

I might zap a few and then let the PS do its work.

I am worried about the rest of my tank.

Patrick

it took mine about 2 months then one day bam, they were gone.

Steve

my own experience with a bad aptasia outbreak was the kalk injection didn't work - made it spread i think - first time no luck with peppermint shrimp then learned about californian versus carribean peppermint shrimp - and two weeks later i literally had to search the tank to find the few remaining aptasia - shrimp remain as good reef residents

curious thing - there is one large one left that has been completely ignored - must be inaccessible in some way to the shrimp

I would kalk the big ones and leave the little ones for the peps.. Do the injections over the course of a week or so to avoid a massive PH jump.

Peps always worked for me..



-A

I looked again this morning at the shrimp as they tend to hide and they both have balck tails.

Don't tell me, I have the wrong shrimp and I need to order more?? :sad:

Just my luck

Thanks everyone for the help, i rally hated to see my tank the way it is right now. I think I will take some before and after pictures.

P

the black tailed ones are the wrong ones.

I doubt these ones will ever eat your aptasia.

Steve

when it rains it pours.

Any suggestions where i can get the proper shrimp?

Any time I have got them from J&L, they have been the right ones. I've never had one that didn't eat aiptasia!

yup I got mine from J&L also.. just ask if they have black tail fins or not.. the only place I got the black fined ones was from petcedera. they didn;t touch my aptasia.. it seams throught a couple threads on them on other boards others have had the same results with the black tails.

for what it is worth there are 3 species of shrimp being called "pepermint shrimp" and only one of them eats aptasia.

just to elaborate the shrimp you have is called
Lysmata rathbunae (black tail) the one you want is Lysmata wurdemani.

the "camel shrimp" Rhynchocinetes durbanensis is also commenly labled as a "pepermint shrimp"

Steve

peps
 

J&L has the red tailed peppermints in stock now. Quite a few of them.

George