Aiptasia - NOT AGAIN!

jake0110

jake0110

Member
I used to try to fight aiptasia with kalkwasser (I understand it's the same as Joe's Juice).
After the litle anemones invaded the whole tank, so I went out and bought a butterfly fish. That poor thing didn't stand a chance. He could have eaten for years off all the gunk in my 150 gal FOWLR.
Just for the hell of it, I bought a chocolate chip starfish. It took him about two weeks to mow down all the aiptasia. I have told this story in numerous fish stores, and no one believes me.
Anyway, I took the starfish out, after he started dining on my snails, and by then the butterfly kept things under control. Unfortunately he kept everything else in there under control too. No more cool stuff on my live rock! Recently, I took almost all my fish out, including the butterfly.
Guess what? They are coming back.
So now I am deciding whether or not to begin the battle again with kalkwasser, or try some other method.
I don't want the butterfly back, because he ate all the good with the bad. I'd like my copopods to grow back so I can get a mandarin.
Does anyone have a happy ending for me?
 
aquaguy24

aquaguy24

Active Member
do u have anything in ur tank now...if not..u can take all ur rock out leave it in the sun for a day or two..and clean out ur filters and anyother place the aiptasia's can get stuck in..but ur tank will go through another cycle tho when u add everything back in....thats wat i did when i upgraded my 24g(which had a ton of aiptasia) to a 90g...im aiptasia free for 4 months now...i have a pepperment shrimp in there just in case...
 
natclanwy

natclanwy

Active Member
If you are going to take everything out you might as well put the butterfly back in since you will kill everything on the rock and there won't be anything left then you will have to start from scratch and seed it again with more live rock. There are several other options that work well if you don't have many aptasia it is not difficult to treat with kalkwasser and then just treat them as they pop up. If you have a good amount of aiptasia Bergia Nudibranches might be a good option they only eat aiptasia though and will starve to death when the aiptasia is gone.
 
fishfreak1242

fishfreak1242

Active Member
Originally Posted by JimVette1
http:///forum/post/2701048
I tried the HOT Water method.

Works fine.
Then added peppermint shrimp to keep 'em gone.

How does the hot water method work? Do you inject the hot water into the mouth of the aiptasia while it is still in the DT or do you have to take out the rock it is attached to?
 
paintballer768

paintballer768

Active Member
From what I understand, peps are a 50/50 shot. Pacific variety will eat them but some other kinds wont, yet theres no way of telling the difference. If they dont take to it, dont feed it for a few days and let em find their food.
 
aztec reef

aztec reef

Active Member
Originally Posted by jake0110
http:///forum/post/2701219
Just bought the shrimp and hoping for the best.

If that doesn't work, try the kalkwasser again. It has never fail on me..You need to have a pasty dosage(as thick as sour cream). then inject the oral disk of aiptasia with a 1ml or 5ml serynge(without the needle) but with a plastic tip. like the ones that come with salifer test kits, it is used to get the final result of X parameter level by adding the last reagent of a testing kit (drop wise) to the mixture.. This plastic tip will help u aim and shoot the kalk deep inside the aiptasia's disk and down throughout its body thus poisoning it, (at the same time using this plastic tip helps u avoid overspraying or missing target)leaving no chance for it to recover.. Keep doing this in addition to keping water quality optimal and eventually they will vanish..
 
aztec reef

aztec reef

Active Member
Originally Posted by fishfreak1242
http:///forum/post/2701054
How does the hot water method work? Do you inject the hot water into the mouth of the aiptasia while it is still in the DT or do you have to take out the rock it is attached to?
The same way as the kalkwasser method, the only difference is that instead of kalkwasser u use boiling hot water(preferably ro). but since it gets boiled, it doesn't really make much of a difference. Plus, you're only using a few milligrams of water per session..
Also theres no need to take anything out....
 
jake0110

jake0110

Member
I'm hoping for the shrimp becuase I used Kalk for a year or so, and eventually lost the battle. It works, but you can't get every single one.
 
jimvette1

jimvette1

Member
Originally Posted by fishfreak1242
http:///forum/post/2701054
How does the hot water method work? Do you inject the hot water into the mouth of the aiptasia while it is still in the DT or do you have to take out the rock it is attached to?
Yes, right in the mouth. I don't remove anything. I use a modified turkey baser. Boiled RO/DI water in the microwave in a small cup, suck it up with turkey baser and blast away.
I might note that I take care my fish are not around (they usually run when they see the turkey baser coming) and if your aiptasia is near your corals or zoos this might not be a good idea.
In my case it was far enough away. The hot water kills the aiptasia almost instantly.
And its free.
 
butrfly2536

butrfly2536

New Member
We had an outbreak too. We purchased 3 peppermint shrimp and a copperband butterfly and within about 2 weeks they were all gone.
 
fats71

fats71

Active Member
My three peppermint shrimp never leave from under my 50 pound center piece rock... I guess they have something inside they are eating...
 
mattyp75

mattyp75

New Member
Never heard of em? Well, I hadn't either. They're nudibranchs, that ONLY eat aiptasia. I was completely overrun in both my 24 gallon pod and my 46 gallon main tank. 3 months from deployment and EVERY aiptasia is gone and I managed to catch the berghia that were out looking for food before they starved and pass them on to a freind with a similar problem. Please, everyone stop with the joe's juice and everything else. It just pisses em off. Release the true predator and see what happens.
 
rort

rort

Member
Originally Posted by JimVette1
http:///forum/post/2701048
I tried the HOT Water method.

Works fine.
Then added peppermint shrimp to keep 'em gone.

did the exact same thing to my tank and with the shrimp! havnt seen any since!
 
isistius

isistius

Active Member
i've tried everything (except the nudis) - nothing worked. until i found aiptasia-x. (sounds like an informercial) this stuff is great. completely reefsafe. destroys aip in seconds. viola!!!
 
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