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Aptasia in bc overflow (can't reach) HELP!!!


Rachell3210

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Ok so about 6 months ago I noticed a few heads of aptasia in the first chamber of my bc29. Never saw any in my display. Well I got a second bc about a month ago and moved all fish to that tank for the time being. Around the same time, the power supply for my leds blew, and due to a few issues that came up in ordering a new one, I just got my lights up and running. I was running a 75watt cfl bulb for 5 or so hours a day on the tank, to keep the gsp and montis that grow on my back wall alive. Well today after I got lights up and running I notice my tank now has 20+ baby aptasia all over it, rocks sand, glass... Everywhere. I plan on getting some peppermint shrimp to handle these as they are all still real small. My main problem is how to get rid of the 5 or six huge ones in the back that the shrimps can't eat? I can hardly fit my hand back there as it is and I surely wouldn't be able to see to inject them. Do I risk it and try to scrape them off and let the shrimp deal with the repercussions? Help!!!

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My overflow box is FULL of aiptasia.  Like really full full.  The rock in the tank gets them popping up in nooks.  Every couple of months I get my hand in the tank and inject the visible ones with aiptasia X which often doesn't really kill them, just seems to shrink them for a while.  Majano wand does kill them, but doesn't really eliminate them because good luck getting every single one.  All peppermint shrimp seem to go down my overflow somehow.  I recommend that you just decide to live with them instead of attempting scorched earth to get rid of them.

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  I recommend that you just decide to live with them instead of attempting scorched earth to get rid of them.

 

This is good advice.

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I don't mind a few here or there, I'm just worried in such a relatively small environment they will get wayyy out of hand. Just have seen soo many horror stories

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I don't mind a few here or there, I'm just worried in such a relatively small environment they will get wayyy out of hand. Just have seen soo many horror stories

 

Here are a few avenues you could take, all come with drawbacks.

 
You can joe's juice, or majano wand (good luck getting them all.
You can get a filefish (might munch on any zoas you have.)
You can get peppermint shrimp, but expensive and not guaranteed (Guess nothing is...)

You can break down your tank and start over again.

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What kind of luck has the club had with Berghia Nudibranch? I feel like if it ever becomes an issue that's what I would try but they are not cheap that's for sure.

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Is it covered where light can't get in. Had the same issue in the 90. I shrunk the 1's I could reach with apitasia x and put the cover over so no light could get in and they where gone. Good luck

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I had no luck with berghia, but I have sooo many aiptasia in my overflow box that I'm tempted to turn off my flow, scrape them all out, dump the whole mess into a separate tank and get a nice big population started to start raising berghia that I can sell for like $8 per pop to people.

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Not a bad idea considering the lowest I can find is like $10+ range plus shipping.

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So, I ended up doing what I posted. Emptied the tank, vinager sprayed the back followed by hydrogen peroxide. All aptasia melted within 5 mins. Scraped all the sides of all 3 chambers, rinsed several times, and used a shop vac to get all the nasty water out of the back. Refilled the tank, added 2 peppermint shrimp. One is lazy, the other is a beast and immediately went to work on the aptasia in the display. A week later, no crash, parameters all look great and not a spec of aptasia to be seen, front or back. The gsp on the back wall took a few days to recover, but I did loose a frag of Monti I had mounted on the back wall due to it getting some peroxide on it that dripped through the intake grate. All in all well worth it to prevent a further breakout, as it went from just a few to taking over in a matter of a few weeks.

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