Glass Anemones

[reef dude]

Hey all,
I was just in at my local fish store and the guy gave me an earful on those glass anemone things, Aipistas?? Apparently, they are NOT GOOD to have in your tank and i have 2 pieces of rock that are just absolutely covered with them. They started spreading all over the tank and some have even attached to the glass now. He told my to get rid of them by injecting them with kalk or something like that. Also, i have heard that cleaner shrimp will eat them. What should i do, just take the pieces of rock that have them on it out of the tank? and then get a shrimp to eat the rest??
Any suggestions??

 

[nate]

Try pepperment shrimp, I think they work..

 

[joe's reefer]

copperbands butterflies and peppermint shrimp work u want about 10-15 shrimps.cleaners dont do it.also for the big ones get a syringe and inject the anemone with kalk or stop aptasia

 

[bang guy]

For once I agree with your LFS! You need to get rid of those Aiptasia. They can kill most corals easily.
Kalk works great by injecting them with a saturated solution. Peppermint Cleaners can sometimes do a great job on the smaller ones. Copperband Butterflies are also good at ridding aiptasia but they will first eat all the worms...

 

[david s]

kalk worked for me the pepermint shrimp didnt seem to like them

 

[j21kickster]

I dont understand why everyone recomends the coperband butterfly. First off the large ones can be expensive. They are not that easy to care for by most beginners, and if you burchase a small it would take it a considerable amount of time to eat them all. I put a 4'' one in a 180which had probably 30 total aptasias and that was about 3 months ago and he is simply not keeping up. there are more than what there were in the beginning. Injection IMO works well to some degree.

 

[jonthefb]

i just picked up a pair of peppermints the other day to chow some little aptasia that are starting to pop up and to my surprise, one of the anemone's was gone this morning. how cool!
now when you all say that you inject them with a kalk concentration, do youget a hypodermic needle and actually inject it into th etissue? my lfs, said to make it into a past and blow it onto the anemone. trying to get the majority of it in its oral opening. i asked if this would kill some zooanthid polyps that were surroundign it and he said yes! Is this what you all do?
kinda confused here!
jon

 

[j21kickster]

yes injection w/ a needle people have also used boiling water

 

[finland]

I had quite a few smaller aptasia and 2 larger ones in my tank. I took a syringe without a needle and sqirted them with boiling RO water. I had to move fast to prevent the water in the syringe from cooling down in the tank, but it did a number on the aptasia. they instantly turned grey and shriveled up. That was a few weeks ago, and they haven't shown up yet. If you have corals real close to the aptasia, I wouldn't try it. Don't want to cooked the corals. Just a suggestion.

 

[reef dude]

well i had 2 pieces of rock that were soooo covered that you really couldnt see the rock anymore, just bunches of aptasia!!
Today i took those 2 pieces and threw them out, just like that, now i only have about 5 big ones left.
Whats the method is the best and has the greatest mortality record?
-boiling water seems quite easy,
-i dont dose my tank with kalk or anything so i would have to learn how to use that stuff before i inject
-peppermint shrimp out of the picture? how many shrimp would you get in order to help the situataion?

 

[aceiswild7]

i wouldnt have thrown them out.. i say now if u put in about 6 peppermints you will never see aptasia again.. mine took few weeks to get started eating them though.. i havntseen one since

 

[richard rendos]

Peppermint shrimp have always worked for me. I would put them in groups of at least 4. One or two probably won't keep up with the aiptasia.

 

[sargeboy]

i too had an outbreak of glass anemones and luckily they were small and i didnt have many corals. i went to the pet store to get some peppermint shrimp that would eat them and i got five for my 75gallon aquarium. most of the anemones were eaten and on the rocks with tons of anemones i took them out and set them in hot water, dried them then put them in more hot water and dried again. now i dont have to worry about them because i got a copperband butterfly yesterday. i cant find out how to post thing only to reply so does anybody have info on how to take care of copperband butterfly fish?

 

[fender]

I have battled them off and on over the years. Big ones get a slurry/kalk mix squirted right at the mouth. They tend to swallow it and die. Small ones are cleaned up by peppermints. Don't try to manually remove them. This only hastens their spreading. Interestingly enough, I have seen them survive an overnight dip in 55* 1.012 saltwater with enough pickling lime in it that the water was a milky white. I always try to keep at least 2 peppermint shrimp in the tank at all times, especially if I introduce any new rock/rubble/corals, etc.

 

[bang guy]

Wow, this is a really old thread.

 

[viper87]

I have heard that injecting them with lemon juice at the base works well