Aiptasia sucks

[SeaHorse_Fanatic]

Originally Posted by Ram3500

I have been thinking about adding a file fish to my reef tank. I have read that they are not reef safe and your link states that as well. Have you have any problems with him picking on corals ? I also have to cleaner shrimp that I would like to keep.

Got mine from a local reefer shutting down. It was fine in their tank and its been fine in my main display. Been in there a month and cleared out every aiptasia within days.

[riceboy]

nudibranches work, i was struggling with aiptasia for years and didn't think these buggers worked but tried everything else like injecting with lemon juice injecting with kalk, but as soon as i killed one there would be 10 more, so i tried the nudibranchs and don't have have any more aiptasia if your ever in calgary i can grab u some as these guys are starving in my tank.

victor

[Dr.Campus]

I ended up just getting one for my 5.5. Figured that should be plenty for such a small tank now its the waiting game to see if they disappear!

[somewherebeyondthesea]

Aquarium Central has aptasia eating peppermints, I think they train them there

[asylumdown]

The only problem with peppermints is that if they don't eat the aiptasia, there is a good chance they'll eat the nudibranch's you buy next.

My first tank was so over-run with aiptasia it's one of the reasons that I shut it down. I bought 6 peppermints that I watched devour an aiptasia at the store, then they went in to my tank and promptly disappeared. They never touched a single nem in the display, likely because the tank got fed too much else that they'd rather eat and I never even saw one again until I broke down the tank. I added the nudis second, and they failed too.

Got aiptasia in this current tank and went straight to the nudis once there were enough aiptasia to justify the purchase. It took a couple of months for the nudi's population to reach critical mass, but once it did entire rocks were being cleared of anemones over night. After all the aiptasia were gone, I ended up catching and selling 4 times as many nudibranchs as I had originally purchased, and made my money back and then some. The only major difference between the two experiences was that peppermints were in the tank when nudis failed, and weren't when nudis succeeded. If it were me, I'd try the nudis first and give them a solid 2-3 months to do their thing, as you likely won't see a single nudi, or notice any aitpasia disappearing for at least a month and a half. If that doesn't work, then I'd go to the shrimp. Nudi's have a higher upfront cost, but in the absence of predators have a higher likelihood of success, and you can sell them when you don't need them anymore.

But +1 to joe's juice or any other injectable being an utter and total waste of time and money. If you're lucky, you'll get a complete kill on one out of 20 anemones, but for the most part a few cells of each nem that you inject will survive, each developing in to an individual. Injecting them is the fastest way to make your aiptasia problem worse IMO.

[intarsiabox]

I used my own kalk paste and a single peppermint shrimp, the trick with manually doing it with kalk, Joe's juice or whatever is to get the aiptasia immediately and letting the shrimp take care of the ones too small to see. Just a small drop of kalk per anemone using a small plastic syringe is all that is reguired. Trying to manually rid oneself of a plague because it was left for far too long doesn't work. I've never had an aiptasia last for more than a day or two in the past and have never seen a single one in the last three years doing it this way. I can't comment on the success of a file fish in a 5-8g tank or nudibranch's as I've never had the need for them but if you only have a few aiptasia I'm not sure about the survival of these two compared to a shrimp that will eat anything.

[Dearth]

As others have said Shrimp are hit and miss I originally had 2 peppermints in my nano tank and 1 would eat aiptasia as fast as it appeared the other showed no interest at all in the nem's. I currently have 3 peppermints in my tank I got a rock that had aiptasia on it and only one shrimp actively seeked out the nem's while the other two ignored the stuff.

But because shrimp are relatively inexpensive to buy and are usually readily available most go that route but it does come with a caveat a lot of stores say they have peppermints but are actually selling camelback shrimp which are similar in looks but have zero interest at all in aiptasia. Buyer beware