What are my options??

[Reef Pilot]

I have had a Pearlscale Butterfly in each of my tanks for several years now, and they keep them totally clean of aiptasia (where I once had many hundreds). You can read the 1st 7 or 8 posts in my journal link below where I mention them. Much easier to keep than Copperbands (tried them, too), but they also don't bother my corals (contrary to popular opinion).

However, being a butterfly, you do need to quarantine (prazi and hypo treatments) them and train them on regular fish food. If you just plunk them into your DT, they will most likely die sooner than later. I can give a few more tips on keeping them if you are interested.

So if you are up to that, they are nice looking fish, great community tank mates, and a permanent solution to your aiptasia problem.

[hunggi74]

If you go the Butterfly route, source it from Albert Dao. Got mine from him, very healthy, already treated. Highly recommended.

[Coralgurl]

Originally Posted by GrantB

That Aptasia cattle prod looks like a lot of fun..

http://www.marinedepot.com/Majano_Wa...FIMIMW-vi.html

Not sure if anyone in Canada carries it.

I have so many of them, I need long term control as I don't think I'll be able to fully get rid of them!

Originally Posted by christyf5

I had a majano wand, theres a hard learning curve with it and those aiptasia/majanos that are in hard spots to reach just stay alive (especially the ones that are growing deep in crevices or on the underside of rocks) and I think I had about a 50% success rate in actually killing them, some looked dead but sprung back up within a week or so. Once the filefish finishes off the stuff he likes, he might decide to go after the aiptasia. I found my filefish didn't like the larger ones, so I nuked those with some sodium hydroxide and he took care of the little ones. He also ate all my zoanthids before trying out the aiptasia.

Well I am ok with him controlling the GSP, but it will take him a while to work through it all. I don't have any zoas but he just looks at the aptasia and moves on. I cheer him on when he's close, but he keeps passing it up.

Originally Posted by Reef Pilot

I have had a Pearlscale Butterfly in each of my tanks for several years now, and they keep them totally clean of aiptasia (where I once had many hundreds). You can read the 1st 7 or 8 posts in my journal link below where I mention them. Much easier to keep than Copperbands (tried them, too), but they also don't bother my corals (contrary to popular opinion).

However, being a butterfly, you do need to quarantine (prazi and hypo treatments) them and train them on regular fish food. If you just plunk them into your DT, they will most likely die sooner than later. I can give a few more tips on keeping them if you are interested.

So if you are up to that, they are nice looking fish, great community tank mates, and a permanent solution to your aiptasia problem.

Therein lies my challenge. I shy away from a QT tank as I was so unsuccessful with it, caused a huge amount of stress on me and my family, I shut it down. I may still have the tank somewhere, I could always try again. I'd love a butterfly, one of my fave fish, but its for the reasons you note above I've never attempted.

Albert is a fish guru, I'll perhaps touch base with him and see what he has available.

I've tried Bergias, not sure what happened to them, into the tank they went, never saw them again. The wand, or any other chemical treatment likely is not an option, simply because there's sooooooooooo many of them!! I pulled my standpipe out of my main overflow and was so disgusted at the amount on there. I scraped them off into the sink, gross jelliness of goo.

What wrasse eats them? I have a melanarous, yellow coris and Christmas wrasse. None of them have gone near them.

[hunggi74]

When I first got the butterfly from Albert, it was reluctant to eat for the first day as well. Albert had already trained it to eat mysis. When it did start getting hungry, it was too slow compared to its tank mates and got nothing. I started feeding it through a pipette and all has been good since then. I cannot reccommend a copperband more for aptasia. Beautiful fish and does the job. Hope this helps.

[monocus]

i've seen my wrasses put berghia in their mouths and spit them out.i recently put in 3 banner fish in my tank and they cleaned up all the aptasia they could reach

[CM125]

I think with such a huge amount you will need to go with multiple options, I use aptaisax on ones I can see and get butterflies to finish them off, or maybe your filefish, you may need to remove some things for now to get him eating it. Wrasses don't seem to do anything...

[brotherd]

If I could catch my pearlscale I'd give it to you. Then I could get things like brain corals and the like to add to my display. My pearlscale does indeed keep the aip down to zero. At a cost. It also picks at sps, and any weak parts of any soft coral. I watched an interesting technique where it will swim up to a torch and fan it with its fins to expose a soft spot and then hit it.

[monza]

I give more Bergias a try.

[trilinearmipmap]

One option is just keep a container of vinegar with needle/syringe next to your tank. Every day zap a few Aiptasia, at the same time you are carbon dosing your tank with vinegar. It is quick and easy if you just stick with it.

[TimT]

Originally Posted by Coralgurl

I had peppermints in the past, but I am sure my yellow coris wrasse made meals out of all my shrimp (cleaners, fire and peppermints).

Have you seen the Coris wrasse eat the shrimp or did they just disappear?

The reason I ask is that there are numerous other causes for shrimp to disappear. If the Iodine level is too low in a tank the shrimp will not be able to molt properly and will die off. With live rock and corals you never know what is lurking in the dark corners of your tank and comes out at night for a snack.

I have used Peppermint shrimp numerous times to clear out aiptasia farms. I feel that they work better as they are able to get more of the aiptasia off of the rocks than fish are.

Cheers,
Tim