Aiptasia city

Snoogans

Snoogans

AC Members
Feb 16, 2007
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Brisbane, Australia
Hi guys, have not been on here since last year, as I have been overseas. I returned last week to discover my entire tank colonised by aiptasia. Tried the boiling water method trick (success with this in past) but after 2 days it seems to have had little effect.

I recall someone once mentioning the addition of lemon to the boiling water syringe, but am unsure about the effect this will have on the chemistry of my tank.

Any other ideas? Help is much appreciated
 
found some coming out of sum new live rock i bought the other day and im starting to get the pic on how to kill em off a couple i removed with hemostats but i took a lil bit o the rock with em to make sure. one came back one didnt so i must not have got all of the second one. im also curious as to whats the diferance n the two? ill go ahead n say what i got is prolly the torch variety cause thas what they look like lol tho i REALY have no clue ;-) ill be folowin this thread for a minute! :-)
Beaux
 
thanks for the reply. will "barishinga (sp?) nudis or a blowtorch" harm my other corals?
 
ive personally had good results with aptasia x but if you have a ton of them all the chemicals might start messing with your water quality, you could try doing it slowly like over the period of 3 or 4 water changes but a large amount of those chemicals will not be good for your tank, you could try kalkwasser but that will raise your ph through the roof if you end up using a bunch of it
 
As far as I know, any biological control for them will only eat smaller aiptasia. If they've taken over that much, I'm guessing there's several reasonably large aiptasia?

I believe the poster above is talking about Berghia nudibranchs. They eat only aiptasia, so they wouldn't bother your corals. However, once the number of aiptasia gets low, they will starve to death. I don't know how readily available they are where you live, but if there's places culturing them, they're usually looking for rock covered in aiptasia and may offer to buy such rock or could have a rock exchange program.

Any chemical method containing vinegar, kalk, lemon juice, etc. can definitely impact water chemistry in the tank when used on a large scale. If you go that route, you'll want to be cautious as to how many aiptasia you treat at a single time. It may be necessary to do small amounts at a time and work towards ridding them over the course of a week or more if you really have a lot of them.

Your best bet might be to try some kind of biological control for the smaller to medium size aiptasia and any new aiptasia (peppermint shrimp work well also and will scavenge for other food) and manually controlling the larger aiptasia. It'll definitely take some time to get things cleared up.
 
Thanks everyone. Boiling water method has taken out most of the big guys, but have a few I just can't reach. Might give the peppermint shrimp ago. Noted a few comments about them being confused with other shrimp. How can I tell if it is true peppermint shrimp?
 
Thanks. Will try and find some tomorrow
 
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