Aiptasia control methods - Poll

[reefme]

Tagging along. Aiptasia X - Didn't work/made worse.

[Nano]

Tropic marin- aiptasia killer worked for me. I had a few when I first set up and it took care of it. I didnt even blast inside of the pests just surrounded them with it and when they came back out the ate it then shriveled up.

[gregzz4]

I don't think my experience is on a large enough scale to qualify, but I voted anyway
I squirted lemon juice straight from the fridge with an Elos syringe and the few I had never came back
I've also had it work on 2 Mojano

Sneak up on 'em slow so they don't feel you coming, then squirt very quickly dead center and keep squirting 'till they're completely receded
I probably used 5ml per pest

[asylumdown]

well, this is super unscientific, but so far the results are very interesting. C'mon people, keep voting!

as for my experience:

90 gallon aquarium was over-run with aiptasia. By the time I broke it down, I had probably close to 10,000. I tried:
joe's juice
Aiptasia X
Lemon Juice
One of the strong acids (sulphuric I think)
Peppermint shrimp
Removing every single rock and blowtorching all aiptasia I could see
Aiptasia zapper
epoxy

None worked, either they made the problem worse, or the logistics of it made the method irrelevant to me. For example - watch the videos online of the Aiptasia zapper. The aiptasia that are clearly killed are always in the most convenient locations. If you have even one aiptasia on the underside of a rock you can't reach, or footed deep in a crevice, the device is useless. Same thing with injectables, they only work if you can reach the nem well enough to kill it completely, and more often than not they seem to be located in places where you can't guarantee a complete kill. By the time the problem was extreme enough to break down the whole rock scape, take everything out of the water and blowtorch it, there were so many that there was no way I could get them all without sterilizing everything, and I was right back to where I started a month later. By the time I bought berghia, I already had peppermint shrimp in the tank (which for me didn't eat a single hem), and the berghia didn't work. I can't say for sure why, but I suspect the peppermints ate them. After around $2500 and probably a hundred hours of effort, I broke down the system.

Second tank, aiptasia were introduced by accident. They spread rapidly. I tried to disturb them as little as possible, and when there were around 50-100 visible I ordered 20 berghia nudibranchs. 3 months later there wasn't a single aiptasia in the system. I've been aiptasia free since February. For me this is the method I'd use again, but I'm one person and therefore am an anecdote, so hopefully more people vote and give a better picture of what can work and what clearly doesn't.

[gregzz4]

Wow, that's a huge amount of pests to deal with
Like I said above, my issue was really small, and I am so glad I cured my rock before throwing it in the DT
This gave me time to inspect it for pests and it served me well

[fishoholic]

In smaller tanks (60g or less) peppermint shrimp have 100% worked for me, in my larger tanks matted filefish (takes them awhile but usually within a couple of months will get rid of it) and CBB's got rid of the aiptasia. However if the shrimp/filefish or CBB dies the aiptasia starts to come back within a few weeks to a month.

[Myka]

My vote:

Peppermint shrimp - success (they don't all eat Aiptasia, so adding a few from different sources works better)

Joe's Juice - success

Matted Filefish - success

Kalk paste - success (just killed a few a couple days ago)

[Parker]

I found it pretty easy to control them in my smaller tanks but once I stepped up to a larger tank it became much more difficult. Manual control was impossible, even with what I considered to be minimal aquascape I just couldn't reach everything.

Matted File Fish solved the problem for me but I went through three of them before I found one that would tackle the. It still took several months for him to start eating them. You have to be patient.

Regards

[MarkoD]

Filefish worked for me. But after removing it. Aptasia came back

[kien]

I'm currently in the process of culturing Designer and Limited Edition Aiptasia. These are species that you won't find anywhere else and will be highly sought after. Don't be fooled by imitations!

I'll let you know how they turn out! Currently taking pre-orders.