How did you get rid of Aptasia?

[scub steve]

I have had shrimp work for me I also got to the end of my rope and picked up one of thouse little blow torch lighters and pulled every rock out and burned the little basterds off. Suprizingly satisfiying

[fencer]

+1 on shrimp

[TheMikey]

+ 1 on shrimp. Then when the aptasia was gone (seemingly) it started picking at my plate. So I sold him. Not aptasia's back! Might try the blowtorch method... muahhahaha.

[snow1]

I did the lemon juice way. It wokred pretty well.

[Ron99]

I have used lemon juice on the odd ones that have shown up on rock or frags. The important thing is to use a sharp syringe and try to inject the juice into the body of the aptasia. Nukes it almost instantly.

[Hawkaholic]

I was using Aptasia X for awhile but was fighting a losing battle so I threw about 25% of my rock in hot tap water for a couple hours...that should teach them sons a... So now I have cut my population back to about 40 000. I put in two of the Berghia Nudis a couple of days ago...see what happens...they wont starve anytime soon...lol

[dbdavid]

I didn't vote as I have tried:

Copper band: Keeps them in check until the copper band dies if you can find one that eats them. My copper band lasted just over a year.
Peppermint shrimps: Tried on several occasions with no noticeable change in population.
Kalk Paste: Keeps them in the rocks for a week or 2 then they return.
Injecting vinegar: No effect – the aptasia laugh at you!
Berghia Nudibranch: Put 4 of them in never to be seen again. No effect on the aptasia.
Boiling water injections: No effect. They shrivel and come back with a vengeance.

So now every week or so I cover them and inject the bigger ones with Kalk. They are still there but are not so noticeable.


Dave

If you use boiling water you have to bath them till they turn white they are dead as a door knob then.. I have used Joey's juice that works also they don't came back but you have to get them all and when the second round comes you have to get them when they are really small. peppermint shrimp have to be acclimated slowly or they are out of sorts and don't do much for quite some time up to a week. I had 1 in my kids tank with some rock that had some really large Aptasia on it and some Halimeda algae. the peppermint shrimp eat the Aptasia first and then the Halimeda algae and kept it all in check.

Bill

Originally Posted by dbdavid

I didn't vote as I have tried:

Copper band: Keeps them in check until the copper band dies if you can find one that eats them. My copper band lasted just over a year.
Peppermint shrimps: Tried on several occasions with no noticeable change in population.
Kalk Paste: Keeps them in the rocks for a week or 2 then they return.
Injecting vinegar: No effect – the aptasia laugh at you!
Berghia Nudibranch: Put 4 of them in never to be seen again. No effect on the aptasia.
Boiling water injections: No effect. They shrivel and come back with a vengeance.

So now every week or so I cover them and inject the bigger ones with Kalk. They are still there but are not so noticeable.


Dave

[naesco]

I did not vote because a peppermint shrimp has always been sucessful in controlling aptasia.

[ponokareefer]

All methods you posted above failed at the end of the day for me. The only way that has worked for me is covering them in epoxy. I had probably a dozen of them and I'm down to 2. The final 2 seem to have a way of getting out from under the epoxy after a day or 2! That reminds me, I better cover them again.