aiptasia

[kwdrysdale]

A proper syringe definitely makes the dosing more effective. I got a 10 pack of syringes from Wal-mart pharmacy for a couple bucks. World of difference.

Kevin

[reefme]

OMG! I found uncle and anty hinding inside my internal overflow. 30" down below where I can't get my hand in there.

[asylumdown]

If there's aiptasia in your overflows, it means they got their by one of two means

1. An anemone that grew somewhere else in your system grew up, walked around for a bit, then let go of the rocks and got blown in to your overflow where they attached, and likely walked around a bit more before they got settled

2. They were the result of another aiptasia in your main tank releasing planula, which settled out in your overflow and have grown fast because that's where excess food goes.

In case one, they likely left dozens to hundreds of pedal lacerations all over your rock before they got there, and the few others that you just treated have themselves almost certainly moved a few times and left their own pedal lacerations everywhere. I once watched a medium sized aiptasia climb up the glass on the side of my tank over the course of about a week. In a line that perfectly matched it's path of travel two dozen (yes, 24!) baby aiptasias sprouted up on the glass. By the time they themselves all started walking/letting go to float their way to a new home they were still far to small to have been seen had they been in the rocks. In case two, there's likely hundreds to thousands more planula in your system but none of the others have grown big enough for you to notice yet. Aiptasia can (and readily do) regenerate entire animals from only a few cells, so while injecting them with Lemon juice/kalk paste/joe's juice/aiptasiaX/strong acids/whatever you could buy seems to offer a temporary reprieve, and in some cases actually seems to kill the whole thing, what happens more often than not is that the aiptasia first releases it's planula when you disturb it, and then from the residue of cells that inevitably survive your chemical treatment, 1, 2, 3, or 5 teeny tiny baby aiptasias will sprout, often walking away from their dead 'parent' before they're large enough for you to notice them. It makes it seem like their numbers are increasing magically. So while you've technically "killed" one large one, you're often helping them to multiply a few times over.

I hate to say this, but after a couple of years of experience with these guys I would expect the numbers of aiptasia in your system to rapidly increase over the next 3 months. I think the only way you can avoid an aiptasia outbreak is if, maybe, just maybe, you you were lucky enough to catch the very first one as soon as it was big enough to see AND if that particular anemone had only ever been on that rock. In that case, the only way to get rid of them is to carefully remove the entire rock and let it dry out for a few weeks.

If there are already multiple aiptasia in multiple places, your chances of eliminating from the system via any means you personally can do (injections, pastes, mechanical removal, electricity, lasers, etc.) is long over. You might be able to maintain some semblance of aiptasia 'control' but that will require such a tremendous amount of time, diligence, and effort on your part that you may start to resent your tank. I know that when my aiptasia population started to climb in to the many thousands in my first system after spending hundreds of dollars and probably as many hours over the better part of a year trying to kill them manually I routinely considered pouring concentrated bleach in to the sump.

Personally, if I were you, I would stop trying to control them with human muscle, as that's both ineffective and incredibly frustrating. I would let their numbers increase until you had 30 or 40 that you could see and count (as that would mean that you probably had 200 more that you couldn't see yet), which if you're not overfeeding, aren't disturbing them, and have low available nutrients in your water will probably take a few months. Then I'd order the appropriate number of Berghia nudibranchs for your size of system. Assuming you have no peppermint shrimps in the system already, they should have no problem multiplying until their population is big enough to completely collapse the aiptasia population. Then as the berghia's start to starve they'll begin to cruise around out in the open far more often and you can suck them up and sell them. Depending on how many berghia you ordered, it can take up to 3 months for them to reach 'critical mass' and start noticeably removing large numbers of aiptasia (I started noticing visible results in two months), so if at 4 months the problem was still getting worse then I'd look in to something that's got a lower probability of actually eating the aiptasia like peppermint shrimp or one of the fish that's known to eat them if your system is appropriate for them.

Don't worry about flow or power heads, berghia can handle anything you can throw at them in your tank so long as you let them get a good foothold when you put them in. As for other predators, I didn't have any of the wrasses that people say might eat them when they worked for me, but I only saw a single berghia out when the lights were on once the whole time I had them, so unless your wrasses are night predators they probably won't bother them. My copperband hunts all night and I watched it actively ignore dozens of berghia.

[Zoaelite]

Although many will advocate against the use of the Copperband Butterfly I'm personally for them. Its said they have terrible track records in captivity but my first lasted 2+ years (died from a rockwork collapse) and my second is going 3 years strong.

Amazing fish, will eat right out of your hand if trained. In addition to this he feverishly devours the little nems. Didn't touch any of my coral (including zoos) to boot.

[asylumdown]

Originally Posted by Zoaelite

Although many will advocate against the use of the Copperband Butterfly I'm personally for them. Its said they have terrible track records in captivity but my first lasted 2+ years (died from a rockwork collapse) and my second is going 3 years strong.

Amazing fish, will eat right out of your hand if trained. In addition to this he feverishly devours the little nems. Didn't touch any of my coral (including zoos) to boot.

+1, I love my CBB. Don't think I'll ever run a system without one. Once they're acclimated I think they're as robust as any other fish, it's getting them acclimated that can be tricky. If the one you bring home isn't already aggressively eating a wide variety of frozen food IMO they require a month or so of TLC in a low competition QT system just so they can be trained to eat. It's when people put a freaked out, freshly caught CBB that's never even seen a mysis before straight in to a community tank that they whither away, get sick and die. Once they're eating prepared foods with gusto they can hold their own against anyone. By the time my CBB went in, the berghias were very clearly winning the aiptasia war (ie, entire rocks were being cleared overnight) so I never got a chance to see what he could do. But when there was still aiptasia in the tank he'd only touch the very tiniest of them, he completely ignored anything bigger than 2 or 3 mm across. He was a lot smaller then though, so maybe he'd go after bigger ones now. Since I know he eats the small ones, I consider him an insurance policy against re-infestation now that the berghias have all been sold or starved.

[reefme]

Originally Posted by asylumdown

+1, I love my CBB. Don't think I'll ever run a system without one. Once they're acclimated I think they're as robust as any other fish, it's getting them acclimated that can be tricky. If the one you bring home isn't already aggressively eating a wide variety of frozen food IMO they require a month or so of TLC in a low competition QT system just so they can be trained to eat. It's when people put a freaked out, freshly caught CBB that's never even seen a mysis before straight in to a community tank that they whither away, get sick and die. Once they're eating prepared foods with gusto they can hold their own against anyone. By the time my CBB went in, the berghias were very clearly winning the aiptasia war (ie, entire rocks were being cleared overnight) so I never got a chance to see what he could do. But when there was still aiptasia in the tank he'd only touch the very tiniest of them, he completely ignored anything bigger than 2 or 3 mm across. He was a lot smaller then though, so maybe he'd go after bigger ones now. Since I know he eats the small ones, I consider him an insurance policy against re-infestation now that the berghias have all been sold or starved.

What your CBB ignored anything bigger than 2 or 3 mm. Good thing I didn't buy a CBB, because my aiptasia is about the size of a toonie.

[mohammadali]

In my experience do NOT touch or inject them , i had 5 in aiptasia in my tank i injected with lemon juice and it didnt work , buy berghia nudibranchs to eat all of your aiptasias

[pinkreef]

i got a matted file fish to help me with mine. it took about 3 weeks and then they were gone. he does very well in a mixed reef and eats pellets and frozen. i started up a new little tank and transferred some rock over
and the aptasia grew back so i got a little file fish for that tank too
so it seems the success is the same as with a copperbanded but the filefish is hardier

[reefme]

Originally Posted by monkE

after reading this thread i just injected some lemon juice into the 3 that are visible in my tank and they certainly didn't like it. I used a pipette and got it directly down their throat before they could close up.

We'll see if its a permanent fix but for now it's clear that they really disliked that lemon juice.

Well, does it works?

[Acrowhora]

i solved my pesky "nems" problem by epoxiying the heck out of em never saw any again