What "REALLY" Kills out Apstasia???

[lebloom]

My rock looks as though its growing hair if you know what I mean. Peppermint shrimp are pretty much worthless or its just the ones I buy. Joes Juice won't do it. It seems like that stuff is a ferilizer for apstasia itself. I have tried nearly all other than buying a Copperband and I'm worried that they would end up dying since they are hard to take care of. I'm this close to pitching my rock and starting over but with the price of rock today that would be expensive. So what does kill that crap out??? Would a Copperband do it or would that be a BIG gamble?:swear:

[Ace25]

Nothing is 100% from my experience. What has worked best for me is using Aiptasia Control (just like Joe's Juice, all just a kalk paste) to kill them back, but I know that doesn't usually get rid of them completely. Once they are killed back and small again then pepermint shrimp will usually solve the problem. Make sure they are "True" pepermints and not camel shrimp. If you have a needle/syringe and are fast enough you can get lucky if you can inject Joe's Juice into the anemone. They move so fast when touched that it is hard to do, but if you get it there is a better chance of it dying.

[lebloom]

Yeah, I know the difference between a Camelback. I went to my LFS and they gave me the incorrect ones one time. I for some reason have never had any luck with Joes. I watched one time when I dosed with Joes and that crap seems to die out but I feel they send out seeds when they explode. Some imagination, huh? My rock has much hair on it as I have on my head, ha. Is there something you can do to make the shrimp go for that crap?

[Hartman2287]

I bought a piece of lr a while back with about 5 or 6 aptasia. I tried the peppermint shrimp but the aptasia were too big. I took the lr out if the tank and hit each one with boiling water using an eye dropper. Then hit them with lemon juice. I had read that both would work so I tried both at same time. If I were you, I would try lemon juice first with an eye dropper because the boiling water will kill any nitrifying bacteria or algea. (In my case the rock was covered in coraline and now has big white spots where aptasia was.) But all aptasia dead now. So either boiling water (cook 'em) or lemon juice.

[lebloom]

Yeah, my rocks covered in coraline, but I guess if I could get rid of this apstasia I could live with the white spots for awhile. I have quite a bit of rock and I aint gonna buy new now. I will try the lemon juice. I really not sure if I want to take the rock out of the water though. As I moving things around I found a new star in it. And its BIG if you know what I mean. Thanks

[Likestofish]

get strait up kalkwaiser fresh mix the joes juice probably lost its kick for being in a bottle to long but yeah i dont just give them a little i bury them in it so any fragments cant escape. If the frags escape they while have more aps

[Debra Mark]

If you don't want to go the chemical route, berghia nudibranchs eat only aiptasia....but you have to be careful not to have any fish in your community that will eat the berghia (like wrasses).

[mercury57106]

i boiled water sucked into syringe and got 4 out of 5 aptasia that i had and the last one was gone in one night after i purchased 2 peppermint shrimp so i guess its a hit and miss kinda thing i feel for ya though those aptasia will take over fast now i have green polpy taking over my lr so i dont really have any room for aptasia or maybe i just dont see any

[Ken_Allen]

I had one in my old tank. I put the rock under the hottest water I could get from the sink, took boiling water and blew it in it's hole with a turkey baster, and then stuck a lighter in the hole and burned it with the lighter. Washed it back out again and I didn't see it from then on.

[fsn77]

I make a thick kalk paste, turn off all the pumps / powerheads, and literally cement the aiptasia in with the kalk paste using a large tip (needleless) syringe -- covering the entire small area that it is attached to / filling the hole it's coming out of. I could just be lucky, but I've yet to have one come back. If there's a lot of aiptasia, be careful using kalk paste / lemon juice / vinegar / etc. as anything that can alter the water chemistry can do so to an unsafe extreme if it needs to be used in a great quantity.

[cam191919]

iv used joes, but id have to imagine boiling water would kill anything

[DSR]

I used very hot water and followed it up with lemon juice and it worked great. I also had one attached to the shell of my clam. That was tricky. I couldn't dose anything. I just had to gently scratch it to death with a sewing needle and a siphon. But it got it gone... and it didn't come back.

[lebloom]

Im having to change out tanks because I had a bad leak so Im buying a new one. Would it be a bad idea to wash out my rock with the apstasia. Wash it out with hot water or should I use something else. Ive had my rock out for about 3 weeks but sitting in salt water and the apstasia is still thriving.

[got2envy]

If it is a real problem get some of these...Berghia Nudibranch

A video of them hard at work
[/URL]

sorry if the link doesn't work if not copy and paste this to your address bar
[URL="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgMBPSXx6m8"]www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgMBPSXx6m8 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgMBPSXx6m8)

I am at work and you tube is forbidden fruit lol

[Captnslapy]

I had some show up in my 40 reef. I tried fighting them off for awhile with joe's juice. Just when I thought I'd have the upper hand, bam they show up again. So I hit the 10 that I could see and I bought 2 peppermint shrimp and I haven't seen any pop back up. It's been about 6 months now, so knock on wood, I think I got it.. good luck oh and about getting those nudibranchs(sp) once they eat all the aptasia, they will starve.

[Reefkid 07]

Well there's 6 different types of peppermint shrimp, 6 of which I can't tell apart. Make sure your LFS can identify them or your aptasia clean up will be a gamble.

[AC2020x]

I used boiling water and placed some smaller pieces of live rock in it that had some aipstasia on it. and I used a syringe with some boiling water to get some other ones-- it worked really really well!