Copperbands and aiptasia

[olemiss]

Are copperbands hit or miss when it comes to aiptasia? Joes juice and similar products seem to be more of a temporary fix. I've tried peppermint shrimp, no success. I was going to try berghia nudibranches but the LFS said a copperband would be a better option. Going on a week and the copperband seems oblivious that the aiptasia is edible. Is time the key with butterflys or is pure luck?

 

[flower]

Originally Posted by OleMiss
http:///forum/post/3185971
Are copperbands hit or miss when it comes to aiptasia? Joes juice and similar products seem to be more of a temporary fix. I've tried peppermint shrimp, no success. I was going to try berghia nudibranches but the LFS said a copperband would be a better option. Going on a week and the copperband seems oblivious that the aiptasia is edible. Is time the key with butterflys or is pure luck?

I love copperbands and have had a few; here is the problem I have found by experience. If the copperband will eat the aiptasia, it will also nip coral. If the individual does not eat aiptasia it is a reef safe one that won't nip coral.
The fish doesn't seem to be able to tell the difference. They are not considered reef safe because you never know which individuals will be coral nippers.
Joes juice, lemon juice,boiling water, aiptasia X all work..but finding every possible one to prevent spawning is impossible and as a result a constant war.
I have found peppermint shrimp do eat the little ones that crop up, but in reef temps they don't last long, and you have to keep buying them.

 

[jstdv8]

Im still having great success with my rocks I bought that had aiptasia on them. im treating them in a 5 gallon bucket with kalk paste (actually Mrs wages) and then puting them in a 10 gallon QT tank for 2 weeks to see if any more sprout up. So far so good, im on my first batch and havnt seen any new ones and Im on day 12.
Im just doing a few rocks at a time so i can keep a good eye on them. Its just too hard to turn over and inspect every single rock in a 100 lb set like i got. it will take a while, but no reason to ruch when dealing with aiptasia.

 

[crypt keeper]

get aiptasia X its works awesome. I nuked all my aiptasia with it. Peppermint shrimp are supposed to work also.

 

[racingtiger03]

never heard of a coral banded eating aiptasia.. I have a coral banded that won't touch aiptasia. I also had a peppermint prior to that. I had 1 small one medium and one large aiptasia in my tank. Taking scissors to them all seperate nights to scare/split the aiptasia, the peppermint took care of the rest in my case

 

[olemiss]

I'm gonna pick a dozen or so pepps tomorrow and hope they do some damage. There is 200-300 lbs of rock which makes removal a daunting task which I do not see happening. I had been using aip x, which kept numbers in check, prior to adding the dragon moray. I'm now a little hesitant to reach deep into the tank- he is quicker than me and can be hard to spot at all times. Talked to my LFS earlier and he assured me that berghia nudis were a waste of money. Have any of y'all tried them?

 

[jstdv8]

I havnt tried the BN's but i heard that they are the hot ticket because they are assured to eat the aiptasia, becasue thats ALL they will eat. the down sides are they are pretty expensive and once they eat all your Aiptasia they die of starvation pretty quickly.
Racing tiger,
Its not a coral banded, its a copper banded and yes they do eat aiptasia. However you need an established tank for that particular fish. they also tend to pick at other corals and they are a bit on the spendy side if you are using it for anemone killing.
Aiptaisa-X is fine, but its really expensive comapred to a 4.99 jar of mrs wages pickling lime which is basicly the same thing. the nice thing about the aiptasia-x is the little device that comes with it that has the straight and the curved ends on it for getting at some aiptasias that are hard to get to.

 

[saxman]

just to weigh in...
generally speaking, the deal with CBB's is to know where the fish was collected.
fish from the IO and IP tend to feed on appies (IO are the best candidate). the IO/IP specimens are the ones that may starve once the appies are gone.
CBB's from Aussie waters pretty much won't touch appies, HOWEVER, these fish readily accept prepared foods such as frozen mysis and BS, and as such, make better display fish.
the deal with peps is to keep them hungry enuff to eat the appies. they tend to leave them alone if they are well-fed, which is why it's best to have a QT or bucket and place the peps and affected LR into it with an airline.
my fave weapon in the "anti-appie" arsenal is the bristle-tail filefish (Acreichthys tomentosus) they stay small (a 30 gal is fine), and after about a week, you'll notice that the appies are starting to go missing. as for whether they're reef safe, the pair we have hasn't seemed to bother the paly's in the tank, but i dunno about other coral/polyps.

 

[jstdv8]

sax,
That was a crazy amount of abbreviations.
Im assuming IO is indian ocean, IP= indian pacific? Im grasping at straws here.
appies are aiptasia, got that. CBB= copper banded butterfly.
paly, i have no idea
and peps would be pepermint shrimp.
help a newb out with the other stuff will ya

 

[crypt keeper]

LOL you nailed them. Crazy thing is I read that like fish ebonics and understood it perfectly

 

[saxman]

yeppers you did pretty much nail them...
IP = Indo-Pacific
paly = palythoa
BTW, for those of you who know her, i'm "Mr. Cranberry"...
here's a pic of the Aussie CBB i had in my reef before it fattened up (sorry...not a fabulous Cranberry shot, this was "BC" (Before Cranberry))

 

[olemiss]

Sax, thanks for bringing the filefish to my attention. I am going to see if my LFS can get me one. I have no idea where my copperband came from. He still hasn't discovered the aiptasia but has decided that my feather-dusters must be be destroyed

 

[halamaya]

My Kleins butterfly ate all the apistasia in record time. Then ate any coral that looked similar. He went for my Duncans but never touched my dendrophyllia, couldn't figure out why. Must have a stronger sting!! My Kleins is even holding his own in my aggressive tank for now. Probably going back to the pet store, he likes Starfish too apparently.

 

[habsfan]

100% of a Berghia's diet consists of aiptasia. It's all they eat. It's a no brainer. They will eat your aiptasia. Your LFS is leading you down the wrong path.

 

[olemiss]

Originally Posted by HabsFan
http:///forum/post/3217336
100% of a Berghia's diet consists of aiptasia. It's all they eat. It's a no brainer. They will eat your aiptasia. Your LFS is leading you down the wrong path.
Have you had success with berghias? I've talked to numerous reefers in my area that have attempted them with no success. The general consensus was that they simply vanish in the tank-powerheads, predation. Luckily, my copperband realized it could eat aiptasia and wiped them out- at least the visible ones.

 

[seamandrew]

I had a Copperband that decimated the aiptasia in my tank. I had to help out doling out the joes juice and boiling the few rocks that were just too infested! I got rid of all of the aiptasia in my old 55 gallon and my Copperband was a big help! Unfortuantely, I later got red slime algae and everything but the royal dottyback died.. including the Copperband...Talk about crashes. To this day, the 55 gallon is in storage.

 

[the_hadleys]

Hi there,
We've had a recent surge in the aptasia population in our 34 gallon. It's driving me absolutely nuts. They're on the rock, in the sand, growing in the crevices around the powerheads... We used Aptasia-X for awhile but we just couldn't keep up. And with the little bitty aptasia it was really hard to get the purple stuff right where it needed to be to kill the aptasia. We ordered some berghia nudibrach a couple weeks ago (3 berghia to be exact). We're waiting for them to get big enough to get shipped and crossing our fingers that they do the job. I shudder at the though of pulling the rocks out one by one and bleaching them just to get rid of the little buggers.
The website that we ordered the BN's from said that most people do not see the nudibranch once they're put in the tank as they're nocturnal and that you most likely won't see any changes in the aptasia population for three weeks or so as the BN's are getting themselves situated, so-to-speak. They were $15 a pop and reproduce rapidly... We shall see. They need to get here, and soon! We'll keep you posted. )

 

[seamandrew]

Get a Copperband Butterfly, it is hit or miss, but if you're lucky as I was, they will devour the Aiptasia!