Aipstasia removal

[trainfever]

I have been battling Aipstasia lately with no luck. I was using Joe's Juice. The Apstasia would shrivel up but always came back. Recently I tried the lemon juice/syringe technique and it has been working great. I go in and squirt about 4 or 5 and then wait a couple days and then get a few more. My tank has been up for about 2 years now, so I usually only test the water about once a month. I've heard about anemones dying in tanks and contaminating the water. Is this true about Aipstasias? When I stck them with the needle and squirt them with the jusce, they shrivel up into the rock. Should I be worried about them polluting my water?

 

[chipmaker]

I would not be concerned if youy have good filtration and lots of live rock. About all they will do is rasie the nitrate level which in all reality is not really harmfull to the fish anyhow......You would have to knock off a bunch of big aip to do any real noticeable effects to your water. I use only lemon juice myself, even though Joes Juice is cheap (bout $6) lemon juice is much cheaper (<1$ in the yellow plastic lemon container, plus it can be used in Tea and other things..;-) Being organic I doubt very much if it does any harm to water parameters either even if you happened to dump in a bunch of it.

 

[clsimons29]

You might try peppermint shrimp that eat aiptasia according to swf.com. I just ordered five for my tank.

 

[catawaba]

I'm curious to know about the supposed method of using lemon juice for aiptasia. Do you dilute it? Do you just squirt it at each aiptasia? Do they die immediately? How much do you use? THANKS

 

[reefkprz]

Berghias verrucicornis- a nudibranch that eats nothing but aipatsia order some introduce them to your tank and watch the aiptasia dissapear. since they eat nothing but aiptasia they will all starve to death (unfortunatly) once all aiptasia have been eradicated plus they look really cool and are reef safe.

 

[chipmaker]

Use undiluted lemon juice. Its commonly available under the trade name of Real Lemon, and is found in either the yellow plastic lemon look alike containers or a dark green glass bottle with real lemon on the label. Its 100% pure lemon juice. Using a hypodermic syringe, / needle fill up syringe and simply inject the aip. If it starts to shrivel up and go inside a hle etc, in the process, just poke the needle in and around and continue injecting. It only takes perhaps 1/2 to 1 ml of juice to do it in. I have heard of others squirting the juice in the aip's mouth. Turn any current producing stuff off (filters, pumps, powerheads etc) and squirt juice directly onto aip. Never really done it any way but injection myself.

 

[trainfever]

I've tried Peppermint shrimp and even a Copperband butterfly fish. Neither work very well if at all. The lemon juics has worked like a charm. My concern is whether or not the dying aipstasia will affect my parameters or poison my water?

 

[revclyburn]

I currently use a product by Blue Life that seems to be working very well. I used it last week and as of today, tank is clear of aiptasia. I saw some little ones yesterday that I missed, they are gone too. Had some where it was hard to get to, but this stuff just filled in the crevices were they were and I don't think they'll be back either. Try it, you may like it, I know I do. Also, get some peppermint shrimp, if the fish you are keeping won't eat them, they will aid in control of aiptasia anenomes.
here's what you're looking for: Aiptasia Control
RevClyburn

 

[solarscar]

So, i am curiuos. What do you say to the pharmacist when your want some hypo needles. I wonder if you say to kill some aip, they will be like, uh huh, yeah kill some aip, sure.

 

[reefkprz]

you should be able to get syringes from your LFS espescially if they do their own shots on dogs and cats. And they wont look at you like your a junkie when you tell them why you need them. they will actually believe you *S*

 

[reefkprz]

http://www.seaslugforum.net/display.cfm?id=5781
check out this site.

 

[mrsdorothy]

I inject the lemon juice in the base of the larger aiptasia. The smaller ones, my peppermint shrimps takes care of them.

 

[ninjamini]

Get a peppermint shrimp. They will eat the small ones.
For the big ones:
Take some calcium and make a paste. Cover the aiptasia with the paste. Be ready with an air-tube a bucket and some fresh saltwater. First turn off all the flow in the tank. After you put the paste on the aspasia it will go everywhere. Use the tube to create a syphon and suck it up. Add fresh salt water to replace what was syphoned off. Depending how bad they spread you may need to do this several times.
Good luck.

 

[catawaba]

Thanks for the lemon juice tips....BTW, I happen to be a pharmacist and the syringe question really cracked me up....I hope there are more hobbyists out there who are pharmacists---not a crazy question to me.... :joy:

 

[trainfever]

I dont know why everyone is giving advice on how to kill Aipstasia. I didnt ask that. I asked whether or not the dying Aipstasia would pollute my water.

 

[solarscar]

Originally Posted by trainfever
I dont know why everyone is giving advice on how to kill Aipstasia. I didnt ask that. I asked whether or not the dying Aipstasia would pollute my water.
Think about it. If its a large anenome and its dead, its organic and will decompose. Your cleaning crew may take care of it, but depending on size, i would be removing the dead stuff ASAP.

 

[rusting]

Originally Posted by trainfever
I dont know why everyone is giving advice on how to kill Aipstasia. I didnt ask that. I asked whether or not the dying Aipstasia would pollute my water.
No it will not harm your tank.