please, help me to get rid of aiptasia

[BadRoma1]

:help: i've tryed everything, from stop aiptasia and joes juice, to berghnia nudibranches that are nowhere to be found for a long time now. the problem is so bad at this point, there is no spot left without those things on it.

[jessie]

how many of the berghia did you have?

[BadRoma1]

i got three, but don't think they alive. one that i saw stayed out for few days in one spot, not moving. so i didn't think that any of them are out there

[capecodder]

do you have any peppermint shrimp in the tank?
i've heard they will go after aiptasia.

[BadRoma1]

no. but i can't keep shrimp alive. i tryed like 5 times now.

[jessie]

well with that many apstasia, i would think berghia would have been the best option. they reproduce and start a colony, and die down after they start to deplete the aptasia. i know they are expensive, but if water quality is decent and they are acclimmated correctly, i think they are the best solution. if a tank only had a few aptasia i think peppermint shrimp can work.

[Charlie-NY]

If Peppermint shrimp won't survive how about a CopperBand Butterfly fish. They eat Aiptasia too.

I heard very good things about Joe's Juice so I'm surprised that it didn't work. I use concetrated lemon/lime juice and a hypodermic needle. Killed 90% on the first try. One of the survivors seems to love it though.

Some guys swear by boiling water which is the safest.

I read that plucking them off is the WORST thing you can do and will result in the spawning of many, many more. Aiptasia are asexual and are capable of pod-fracture-reproduction. A broken pod will produce several new Aiptasia where there was only one.

[RothChyld]

I know of 3 ways that have worked for me:

Inject with boiling water
inject with a kalkwasser paste
Peppermint shrimp

I still like the peppermint shrimp route. Check your water parms and make sure you acclimate them for a long period of time putting a little tank water in their bag every 15 minutes. I didn't see what other livestock you had though as maybe something is going after them. Do not feed them so you force them to eat the aiptasia.

[BadRoma1]

what else copperband buterfly will eat? i have corals.

[capecodder]

link to copperband
www.liveaquaria.com/product/prod_display.cfm?pcatid=212&N=0

[BadRoma1]

here is an update. i still have berghia nudibranches, at least one. i wanted to know for sure, so i was looking for them at night. it looks like i have one for sure, but i don't think that i have a colony. now, do i just feed boiled water to aiptasia like i would feed joes juice?

[RothChyld]

Yes. Inject it with a small 1ml syringe.

[mysis]

What other fish/invert do you have?

[BadRoma1]

lawn mover blenny, clowns, fire fish, yellow tang, cleaner blenny that doesn't clean and cleaner weisse that does its job. i have sand sifting star, lots of bristle worms that i don't like very much, lots of miniature bristle stars, emerald crab, lots of other different kritters that came with the rocks, like sponges and shrimp looking things and bugs. i also have soft and stony corals and finger sponge. i did kill some aptasia last night, like half, but they usualy come back withing a week. so i'm waiting to see. i used to try to kill some all over at once, but i'm going to try just take on some small areas at the time. i forgot to say that i have lots of miniature snails, turbos, and sand sifting snails that hide in a sand.

[csloo]

I know of 3 ways that have worked for me:

Inject with boiling water
inject with a kalkwasser paste
Peppermint shrimp

I still like the peppermint shrimp route. Check your water parms and make sure you acclimate them for a long period of time putting a little tank water in their bag every 15 minutes. I didn't see what other livestock you had though as maybe something is going after them. Do not feed them so you force them to eat the aiptasia.


what RothChyld is true? Me more prefer kalkwasser paste and peppermint shrimp.

BadRoma1, you have a lots of invertrebrates. Maybe your crab will hassling this shrimp. But if you really have no choices, bring all ur LR out and kill those aiptasia manually. This is the best way since you dont have any better solutions that other reefers suggested.

[BadRoma1]

i'll try kalkawesser paste or peppermint shrimp, or both. every time i've tryed to kill them with joes juice, the aiptasia came back in bigger numbers. non of the shrimps i've tryed before made it, didn't even matter if i acclimated them nicely for a long time. i have a hard time with boiling water, can't see if i got it into the aiptasia

[csloo]

i'll try kalkawesser paste or peppermint shrimp, or both. every time i've tryed to kill them with joes juice, the aiptasia came back in bigger numbers. non of the shrimps i've tryed before made it, didn't even matter if i acclimated them nicely for a long time. i have a hard time with boiling water, can't see if i got it into the aiptasia

you need to have a proper steps to inject those KW paste(for me i prefer using high concertrate KW liquid) into aiptasia mouth. You will see it melt immediately.

IF you steps not accurate, then those aiptasia will multiplying themselves when they squize their juices out. That y u will see everytime u injured those aiptasia, they will grow back in numbers.

[Charlie-NY]

How do you make "high concertrate KW liquid"?

[RothChyld]

mix kalkwasser and saltwater to form a high concentrate liquid. it should be white.

[itstheantitang]

Before you start killing the aiptasia, turn off some of the flow in the areas around the bugger, because you do not want kalk paste flying around the tank. Also, when you are done, suck any excess kalk paste off with a turkey baster.