Bad Aptasia Problem

kolody117

kolody117

Member
Does anyone have any suggestions on how to deal with a severe aptasia bloom? I must have close to 1000 , yes one thousand growing all over my rocks, glass, bio boxes, corals.
I currently have a coral band butterfly in there along with 16 peppermint shrimp and they not seeming to even dent the problem
I am desperate, please help
Mike
 
kolody117

kolody117

Member
first, i friend and i took the rock out and tried scrubbing it off with a wire brush.. sat it in very cold water for a week and replaced it in the aquarium. It grew back.
Then i tried cutting back on feeding my corals and fish to eliminate excess food in the tank and that didnt work.
I bought 4 peppermint shrimp and saw no progress.
then i bought 16 more about 5 weeks ago and added the copper band butterfly approx a week ago and it still seems to be spreading
this is about a 4 to 5 month timeline
thanks joe
 
reefboy1994

reefboy1994

Member
squirt them with boiling water from a turkey baster...dont do too many at once cuz if u do all in an hour your tank will be boiling!
 
jubbin2001

jubbin2001

Member
You might want to consider using Aptasia-X. From what I hear it's pretty darn good. Personally I just used peppermint shrimp, and 2 of them wiped out everything....but there is no promises with biological controls.
Are you 100% sure they are peppermints and weren't maybe mislabeled and are actually camel backs? They do look quite similar, and in the LFS shops I have been to, are really tough to tell apart in a tank. Just for a visual I threw these up some links.
Peppermint:
https://www.saltwaterfish.com/site_11...ot_parent_id=4
Camel Backs:
https://www.saltwaterfish.com/site_11...ot_parent_id=4
Seems odd to me that out of 16 peppermints, not 1 is interested in them
. Otherwise you can make a kalkwasser paste and use a syringe to "feed" the disk of the anemone the paste, and that normally does a good job of taking care of them...either way I wish you the best of luck
.
 
kolody117

kolody117

Member
Jubbin;
I have that aptasia x and its the same concept as the kalkawasser paste.. It does kill them but i have too many. I kill 5 and 10 more respawn in its place.
As for the links you sent me i defenately have the peppermints. No mistaking it.. They are eating some of the aptasia maybe not as fast as i would like to see. As for the butterfly.. i dont know what his problem is.. lol
If the aptasia wasnt covering the rocks that my coral was attached to i would take the rock out and give it a boing hot water and bleach bath.. But i have very large pieces of devils fingers and toadstool leathers and purple, green fuzzy and red mushrooms that share space on the same rock..
I have heard from other hobbyists about some sort of nudibrach that eats only aptasia but i am uncertain that putting one pest in the tank to get rid of another is the best route to go.
If anyone has any other suggestions I am open to them
thanks
mike
 
king_neptune

king_neptune

Active Member
shrimp...there was a certin kind of shrimp that goes after aptasia...pepermint...skunk...I cant remember, gimme a bit to find the answer.
 
jubbin2001

jubbin2001

Member
I know the nudi you are talking about....Berghia verrucicornis. There are a couple problems with them though. All they eat is aptasia, and after it's exhausted they die. Also from what I have hear, they are not cheap.
Given how severe your problem is, I would almost consider cutting off your corals and ditching the rocks into boiling water, but I would use this as a last resort.
#1 you kill everything else on your LR as well, making it dead rock, and really of no use for natural filtration any more.
#2 I think given the opportunity, the shrimp may take over, if you get caught up. Maybe skip ALL feeding of your tank for a few (2-3) days (don't worry everything will live). This should send the shrimp into a scavange mode, and they might start attaking the aptasia.
I still would keep using aptasia x to try and get as many as you can, but I would try and get the ones away from the corals with it first. hose them down to the stalk on the glass, and clear those out first. Leave the ones in the rock for now...get the easy ones first. Give it some time, there isn't going to be an overnight fix on this.
 
kolody117

kolody117

Member
jubbin;
thank you and i will start doing that. I need to buy another bottle of the aptasia x as i used up all my first one.. lol.
there are one or 2 badly covered rocks that are covered with aptasia that have no coral on them.. maybe i will take them and boil them so at least they stop breeding more aptasia. as for the ones that have coral, i will keeping squirting them.
I appreciate the help jubbin I will keep you posted in my progress
thanks again
Mike
 
flower

flower

Well-Known Member
I am new here but I have an idea. It starts with a silly story.
When I first got into saltwater tanks and I had nothing but live rock, my tank had cycled and I noticed a little anemone growing. My husband and I thought it was so wonderful and we had him for free on the rock! We loved our little anemone and then it became three! We were so proud.
I purchased a chocolate chip starfish, mind you, sites like this one did not exist in those days and we had no idea what we were doing…obviously! To our horror the starfish went and ate our little pets within minutes. A very good thing but we didn’t know it at the time. We took the eating killer back to the LFS angry because they didn’t tell us it wasn’t reef safe.
My idea is this, if you have a small tank that you could set up, get a chocolate chip starfish or two and let them feed. You could place the coral covered rock in the smaller tank and use Aptasia X on those rocks to protect the corals. I am sure you can find a home for the well fed starfish or return them to the LFS when they are finished eating.
Like I said, it is just an idea and you seem to have more little "pets" than you can handle. Chacolatechip stars will eat them, and suck them up out of the rock never to return.
 
jubbin2001

jubbin2001

Member
Flower - that is rather interesting, I have never known CC starfish to eat aiptasia. I had one munch away some mushroom polyps before (thank goodness they were free
) but never these anemones.
At this point I think it's safe to say any idea is welcome. Though even with the CC star, there is no guarantee it will work. Given the amount of shrimp he has that SHOULD be curing the problem, it's a perfect example that not always do things turn out how we want. Though if my idea doesn't work, who knows what to do, it might be worth takig a look at
.
On a side note - make sure after you starve the tank (
) you don't go over feeding it trying to play catch up. Like I said before, given your live stock is healthy you should have no problems, and should return to a normal feeding schedule. Over feeding might end up causing a bad shift in parameters that could be detrimental to your tank.
 
buffett

buffett

Member
im sorry to screw up this thread but he is just not that great imo,i dont care how many post he has or how much "experience" he has, walk like a duck talk...... respond like a jerk......again im sorry to jump in like that
 
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