Please help

[spamn]

For the aiptasia, your going to have to at least do some chemical method.. kalkwasser, Aiptasia Control, etc.. any of those products out there for that purpose work somewhat.. nothing seems to ever work 100% though when it comes to chemical solutions. What I have seen people do is a combination of chemical and biological, ie, squirt the aiptasia with the chemical to get it to shrink up and kill as much as possible, then 24 hours later throw in some pepermint shrimp to eat the rest. Pepermint shrimp usually don't eat the BIG aiptasia like you have, but if you use some chemicals to start to take them out the pepermint will usually finish the job. One word of caution though, shrimp are pretty sensitive creatures and usually do not fare well at all in newer tanks.. tanks less than a couple months old.

Thanks. I went to my LFS today and picked up some Joe's Juice. Pricey stuff.,. but boy does it work and work instantly! Anyway, I went to town injecting the demon anemones. They are quick but I think what I did got them. It's nearly impossible to get the head of the syringe in the inside like directed. I managed to shoot them all (i'm sure it wasn't ALL, but you get the idea). My question is, now what? I have shriveled up remains of aiptasia now. Do I just let them detiorate or does that release harmful chemicals into the water? Pluck the remains, or does that spread the possibly still living insides?

As far as peppermint shrimp.. my LFS had them for $10 a pop! I wasn't expecting that but then again I thought everything there was overpriced. They suggested about 4 of the shrimp (for my 55g tank) to clean up the rest of the aiptasia but I asked about the shrimp being sensitive and they said that they are, but since the 10 turbo snails I have are still alive and thriving that my water is ok. They said the turbo snails are just as sensitive if not more. I wasn't sure at this point so I walked out with just the Joe's Juice.

I while there I only saw one lobo coral. Looked pretty similar but it was red around the edges. Whatever mine is you're right. It's probably just not one of the "fancy" variants. However I did manage to catch my polyps open. They are a purplish color but when open they are a very vibrant green on top. Hopefully they do better with those aiptasia out of their colony.

PS. With the amount of aiptasia I had it took nearly half the bottle of Joe's Juice and using it sparingly. What does all that do to my water? Can it hurt anything? Isn't is just basically calcium?

 

[Ace25]

Joe's juice won't really hurt anything else.. it can hurt other corals if you actually squirt some on the coral, but I have squirted similar stuff within 1/4" if a coral to get an aiptasia with no ill effects on the coral. I believe Joe's juice and anything similar is just concentrated Kalkwasser, Calcium+Alk, so the PH is really high on it, like in the 12-14 range. That is why you still want to be carefull with the stuff, and turn off powerheads like it says IF you have other corals in the tank, that way it doesn't get blown around and land on other corals.

Now you have seen "Step 1".. the aiptasia "appears" to have died and shriveled up. Yes, just leave them there to die off. Problem is, 90% of the time they don't die.. they shrivel up to almost nothing, looks like they died, but 3-4 weeks later are back out in full bloom again. Real pain in the butt.

Your LFS is correct that snails are just as sensitive as shrimp, but in all my years of experience, I have always been able to add snails within the first 30 days of a new tank without much problems, but every time I have added a shrimp to a tank less than a month old it has died every time.. within 2 months it is 50/50, after 2 months they seem to live fine as long as water quality is good. I don't know why.. but that is my experience. You can try a pepermint, $10 actually isn't that much for one.. normal price actually. Cleaner shrimp usually go for $20-25 and Harlequin shrimp are $30ea around where I live. If you want to try a Pepermint then go for it, that is what is needed to really kill off the aiptasia, or there is one type of nudibranch (sea slug) that eats them as well, but not easy to come by, and they only eat aiptasia so once the aiptasia is gone you either have to give the slug to someone else with the problem or watch it starve.

 

[corinna]

i had good luck using a syringe but swapping the regular needle for one of those tiny sharps used for injecting botox or insulin(1/3 mm x 14mm) you can hit them more than once before they retract.hope this helps.c.