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cdarnley

cdarnley

Member
i have what looks like red feather dusters in my tank but they never really go away if there scared i hear people talk about antpasia i was wondering if this are them and if there not if anyone could give me some advice.
 
theappe

theappe

Member
well feather dusters and aiptasia look totally different. google (picture) them and you will see.
 
fishgeek01

fishgeek01

Active Member
which one are you asking if its bad ?feathers or aptasia, the feathers are good, showing you have a strong reef environment, unfortunatly the aptasias can mean the same thing but they are bad very bad i beleive what you have are micro dusters, they probablly have a hard white skeleton and the red fronds that you see are the gills, the filter feeding part of the worm that gathers the food for the worm
 
anonome

anonome

Active Member
Originally Posted by cdarnley
whats so bad about the aiptasia
1...they multiply like rabbits.
2...when they get large, they can entrap fish and kill them.
3..they live off the same filter food that good filter feeders eat, competition.
4...they can survive under very low lighting, and divide through the water column...free swimming.
5...once established they can multiply on rocks near wanted corals, thus stinging them to death. They are right up there with the stinging potential of the elegance coral. Nasty dudes. Get rid of them. Do a google search and all sorts of info comes up on these guys.
 
rot_stupid

rot_stupid

Member
I have a bunch of aptasia's in my tank too. I started with only 1 that I could see, now there are several, and my tanks is only a 8 weeks old. How do I get rid of them. I heard if I try to pull them out, they will rip and become a whole new one.
 
rot_stupid

rot_stupid

Member
Originally Posted by hot883
using a turkey baster, squirt them with boiling water.
this won't have any ill affects in my tank?
 
rot_stupid

rot_stupid

Member
Ok, so other then killing the Coraline algae around is there any other stebacks? and are we talking the immediate area, or several inches around?
 
fishgeek01

fishgeek01

Active Member
the immediate area, and it is more effective to actually get a syringe like a diabetic would use and physically inject the boiling water into the mouth of the anemone, also kalwasser mixed quite thick does the trick even better, turn off your filtration and water movement, inject the anemone, and then coat the surronding area to ensure that you have killed it, i am told that they reproduce not only through the water column, but the base actually buds off and forms many new anemones that you may not be able to see when they are small and still near the parent anemone, that is why i say to coat the area around it as well, about the size of a quarter is the area i cover, and i havent had an aptasia in years because of this method.
 
cdarnley

cdarnley

Member
what if i just turn the rock up side down and bury it in the sand and crushed coral. i know it sounds stupid but do you think this would work :thinking:
 
cgrant

cgrant

Active Member
if its AP i have read it multiplies like rabbits, I have some feather dust in my tank but what is strange they dont seem to have a stem, they are very small (size of a dime) and when motion they hide back into the rock, maybe they are so small i cant see the stem?
They look more like feather dust than AP.
What do you guys think?
 
cdarnley

cdarnley

Member
my g/f suggested what if we just take the whole rock out of water that ha all these on them and stick it in boiling water would that work. even though all the cloraline algae and microbes will die
 
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