Aiptasia and problem solving

[xabo]

I have approximately 10-12 peppermints and a aptasia eating file fish (supposedly) and still have aptasia.

[BubbleHead]

I used aptasia X and followed up a month or so later with new growth and they never came back.  It's not working on the Xenia though

[YHSublime]

I moved this thread into the "general" section. I did not notice I had placed it in the wrong area.

 

As for the apitasia, I manually scraped off what I could, and will work on the rest over the next few days, see if I can't get rid of them.

 

 

It's not working on the Xenia though

 

I've vowed to never put xenia in my tank, or kenya tree.

[jimlin]

 

As for the apitasia, I manually scraped off what I could, and will work on the rest over the next few days, see if I can't get rid of them.

 

 

I manually scraped off aiptasia from my sump days after I put a small piece of rock full of aiptasias into my sump not knowing that it could make its way into the main display tank. well, I took the rock out of my sump, scraped off whatever I found in the sump and now they are all over my display as well as my sump. I think scraping will only cause the aiptasia to release spores and make it reproduce

[AlanM]

Well, I had five aptasia that i wanted to zap today when i brought the wand home I was renting from QR. I picked up a few more peppermints too. I got home and could only find three of the five i intended to zap.

 

I know that two of the six shrimp I originally got from BRK are out of the display and in the sump. I have only seen one in the display, but there could be more. In any case, two aptasia disappeared in the last day. So I am cautiously optimistic that it is Johnny's peppermints that are doing it. The ones from QR look identical, so I bet they are the same.

 

I zapped the remaining three in like 2 minutes and for the next day my tank is aptasia free, heh.

 

Isaac, I would advise trying some peppermints and renting the wand. I will have theirs for a couple of weeks and plan to return it at the meeting. Steve said they would be willing to do a peppermint group buy and bring a bunch if folks are interested. If you wanted to rent the wand at the meeting too you could probably work that out with them too.

[YHSublime]

Thanks for looking out, Alan, my big but this meet will be peppermints I guess.

[mling]

I had a major Aiptasia  problem in my 156, they were everywhere, hundreds of them. I had neglected my tank for a long time after a crash.  I tried a File Fish but it did not make it, in the few weeks I had it, it did not touch any Aiptasias.

 

I got a Klein Butterfly - Marine Scene almost always has them for under $30.  For a few weeks it did nothing, then one day it found that Aiptasias were yummy. In a few days, all Aiptasias were gone.  It has been over 2 years since and I still don't have any Aiptasias, only a few in my sump. I do see one every now and then but the Klein takes care of them.

 

I suspect that once you have Apitasias in your system time you will always have it. For this reason, I never let any thing from my 156 touch anything in my other tanks which are still Aiptasia free.

 

My Klein never bothered my corals but I don't have SPS, mainly softies.

[jimlin]

I had a major Aiptasia  problem in my 156, they were everywhere, hundreds of them. I had neglected my tank for a long time after a crash.  I tried a File Fish but it did not make it, in the few weeks I had it, it did not touch any Aiptasias.

 

I got a Klein Butterfly - Marine Scene almost always has them for under $30.  For a few weeks it did nothing, then one day it found that Aiptasias were yummy. In a few days, all Aiptasias were gone.  It has been over 2 years since and I still don't have any Aiptasias, only a few in my sump. I do see one every now and then but the Klein takes care of them.

 

I suspect that once you have Apitasias in your system time you will always have it. For this reason, I never let any thing from my 156 touch anything in my other tanks which are still Aiptasia free.

 

My Klein never bothered my corals but I don't have SPS, mainly softies.

did the klien butterfly eat any corals in your tank?

[Sharkey18]

I love Joe's juice. And I'm an expert at killing the little buggers. 

 

You around tomorrow? 

[YHSublime]

I love Joe's juice. And I'm an expert at killing the little buggers.

 

You around tomorrow?

Yep, with a bottle of ap. X, will see how it goes.

[mling]

did the klien butterfly eat any corals in your tank?

I have not lost any coral to my Klien in the 2 years I have had it BUT they are not reef safe so I may be just lucky. 

I have Frogs, Hammers, Ric, Mushrooms, Xenia, GSP and Zoas. I also had a Raccoon butterfly that would eat aiptasia, that was a FOWLR tank.

[matt]

Any one try any of these methods on majanos? i have had no luck riddin these guys.

Also interested to hear if people have similar success/failure with all these tactics and majanos. I have a few, but they certainly aren't small little things...dime/penny sized heads not including tentacles. I assume majano

[Jason Rhoads]

+100000000000 to peppermints. Always work for me. I have 5 in my 100g and they keep it clear. They even took down some big (50 cent piece sized) aptasia that I had before adding them. 

[AlanM]

Well, the ones I have are kinda down inside the rocks.  I wanded them yesterday and they went away, but are back today.  I can't get a good enough visual on them to give them a good enough wanding, I think, so I'll be looking at these peppermints and the ones I got earlier to take care of my issues.

[Tom9]

I have a 180 that got overrun by aiptasia.  I controlled it with ap-x, but every couple of weeks they would be back. If I used ap-x weekly, I had great results but I'm lazy and never kept up.  I tried a file fish but he ended up in my sump and unfortunately died in my skimmer pump before I could find him.  I then followed zygote2ks recommendation and put about 50 peppermint shrimp in my 180.  I have not seen an aiptasia in the 6 months since I've added the peppermint shrimp.  I never see any of the shrimp, but they must be around since I still have no aiptasia.  I got the peppermint shrimp from reeftopia.com in bulk for $1.95 each

 

I also have a 46 with 3 peppermint shrimp. I know at least one is still alive but I must not have enough of them because every couple of months I use ap-x on a random aiptasia.  In this tank I never saw more then 10 aiptasia, so much more manageable with ap-x.

[AlanM]

Just as a quick update.  I said that I wanded three of them and they all came back because I wasn't able to do a great job of wanding them due to their location.  This morning I saw three peppermint shrimp rocking back and forth at the base of my rocks (which was a surprise because I'd only ever seen one before so I assume this was 1 of BRK's and the 2 I got from QR).  I decided to go looking for aptasia, and was only able to find a single one and it happened to be the one that's easiest for me to wand. 

 

So I didn't actually see any peppermints eating aptasia, but I can correlate the aptasia disappearing with adding these shrimps. 

[AlanM]

Spoke too soon. All but one were back with a vengeance. I pulled off some frags and really got in there with the wand. The wand is very satisfying. Had two in the sump too and wanded the heck out of those too. We will see if they come back. It makes a chlorine smell, so Im not sure what electrochemistry is going on, but whatever it is, the fish dont seem to care but it makes the aptasia all bubbly and tiny.

[YHSublime]

My copperband came around , eats mysis , aptasia, and feather dusters. Also likes fresh scallops.

[AlanM]

My copperband came around , eats mysis , aptasia, and feather dusters. Also likes fresh scallops.

 

 

 

Cool.  Why you don't like feather dusters?  I think they're cool.

[YHSublime]

I love them, I was just listing things it eats. I had a nice collection, key word, had.

[Sharkey18]

I'm about to transfer my file fish back to my display for a few weeks… 

[YHSublime]

I'm about to transfer my file fish back to my display for a few weeks… 

 

Do you not have trouble catching and transferring back and forth? My tank doesn't have a "blood in" rule, but there has been a recently established "blood out" one.

[Sharkey18]

The filefish is easy.  He tends to sleep in a top corner… 

 

FYI: i have no idea what you are talking about…. blood in? blood out? please enlighten..  

[Sharkey18]

I am considering added peppermint shrimp. 

 

Will my skunk cleaners (3) and fire shrimp (1) eat them all before they eat the aptasia? 

[YHSublime]

FYI: i have no idea what you are talking about…. blood in? blood out? please enlighten..  

 

If you ever watch documentaries on gangs they say "blood in, blood out." It means you have to kill to become part of the gang, and then the only way out is to die. It was a really complicated way of saying I've decided once a fish goes into my tank, it doesn't come out unless....

 

As for the peppermints, I don't think your skunks or your fire shrimp will bother them. My concern was that my Melanurus would eat them, and at $8 a pop, that's an expensive meal.