aiptasia

[reefme]

aiptasia doesn't want to go away. Treated with aiptasia-x four weeks ago and its came back in two weeks treated again and came back again. Is there anything that I can do to get rid of it?

[RDNanoGuy]

Originally Posted by reefme

aiptasia doesn't want to go away. Treated with aiptasia-x four weeks ago and its came back in two weeks treated again and came back again. Is there anything that I can do to get rid of it?

Get some critters that eat them. Peppermint shrimp, berghia nudibranchs, or a copperband butterfly.

[reefme]

I thought of that.

Peppermint shrimp: I have so many wrasses that might kill it.

berghia nudibranchs: scare to get kill by power heads.

copperband butterfly: I have so many fishes in there already. They all get aggressive when I add a new fish in.

[Cracken]

You could try getting a glass needle and boiling some vinegar then injecting the aptasia with the hot vinegar.

[daniella3d]

My copperband never touched any, not even one. My peppermind shrimps don't care for them either.

I tried a huge bottle of AiptasiaX and they go away for a few days but return.

I am now trying berghias nudibranchs but if you go that route you should not have any peppermint shrimps as they will eat the berghia, and any other fish that might eat them. You can introduce the berghias in the evening when wrasses are asleep. The berghias will hide in the liverock and they are nocturnal so they will come out when the wrasses are asleep and eat the aiptasia. It's a slow method of control and the berghias are very fragile so they must be handled with little pipette, not with hands. I put 5 in my 70 gallons tank. They went into the liverock and I did not see them again. That was a week ago. Now I am seing aiptasias disepearing one by one so I know they are there and coming out at night to eat. I am hoping that they will reproduce and thrive in my tank with the tons of aiptasias that I have (enough to feed an army of berghias).

When introducing berghias, you must not put them directly on an aiptasia as the aiptasia will eat the berghia. YOu must put it near by the aiptasia but out of its reach.

Good luck, those are real pests. I still use aiptasia x from time to time to wipe out those little nasty aiptasias that get into my zoanthids colonies and frags. They seem to have a way to find my zoanthids

[reefme]

I have 280 gallons tank. I only see 5 aiptasia for now.( one grand mother, one daddy, one mommy, one guy, and one girl). So how many berghias do I need?

[fishytime]

Originally Posted by reefme

I have 280 gallons tank. I only see 5 aiptasia for now.( one grand mother, one daddy, one mommy, one guy, and one girl). So how many berghias do I need?

is your tank a reef or FO?.......that is a pretty big tank for berghias.....I tried 10 in a 260g....never saw them again and still had aiptasia (but I have wrasses).....the thing that finally ended up working for me was a matted filefish......all other fish in the tank ignored the filefish.....only problem with filefish is they are prone to nipping at corals (mostly zoanthids and meatier LPS)

[Proteus]

Kevin the big matted filefish at ma would look great in that tank. Lol

[reefme]

Fish only tank. OK I will give a matted filefish a try.

[kevin920]

u can try some peppermint, mine eat them all gone, my wrasses just attack them a while, then ignore them lol