Infestation problem

[plyah8a]

I know this issue has been beaten into the board but looking at the picures below, you can see my dilema. Aiptasia has taken over my tank. Simply injecting with Kalkwasser, lemon juice will not solve the problem. I have over 300 aiptasia attathed to my LR. My trites, trates and ammonia is all at 0. Ph is stable and temp is a balmy 78 degrees. I have 3 peppermint shrimp who totally avoid this side of the tank. 2 clownfish, 1 royal gramma, 3 damsells, Red star starfish 3 condilactus anemones (attached to LR), 2 dotty backs and 5 blue leg hermit crabs. I was told by a lfs that pepermint shrimp in bulk will help (3-5 per 10 gallon) No luch with Cobberband butterflyfish. In the past they never ate aiptasianot even the small ones. What can I do? Should I just thow these away?Can I treat witout infecting my inverts?

 

[hot883]

Looks like you have some bubble algea too. It is really bad, I think I would take the rock out and fresh water dip it for like a day. It will KILL the live critters and everything inside the rock, but at this point I don't think it would matter.

 

[fishieness]

yeah. that is what i would do too. you still have some live rock that isnt affected right? Just take it out, kill everything, then cure it again, or you can dry it for like a month and boil it and put it back in as base rock.

 

[stanlalee]

like said take those out and kill it! then quarantine it for a while (make sure it isn't coming back) then put it back in the display tank. Course there must be a reason they are growing so wildly in the first place. Must figure that out or you'll just repeat the cycle. Looks like you should taken action a LOOOOOOOOOOONG time ago.

 

[miked0523]

You could try a silver scat. It is a brackish water fish and has been known to devour aiptasia.I had a bad infestation and what I did was pull the rocks out and scrub them in a seperate contaner with a hard brush. this wont get rid of them all but will make it manigible then use joes juice to kill what ever comes back.

 

[plyah8a]

Can a brackish fish be converted over to a saltwater tank?

 

[fishieness]

most of them can. as long as they do so over the periode of like weeks-months. It depends on the fish however.

 

[plyah8a]

I recently purchased the 16 pepermint shrimp. Havent seen one in 3 days. With Joes juice, I have over 300 aips. Do I just wave the injector over the rocks? Wll it affect my 3 good anenomes. Is this safe? I read on one of the other post to turn the power heads off.

 

[thomas712]

Find yourself some good base rock, then take out some of the affected rock. The base rock will then become seeded with new bactera and pods and worms. After you have killed off the offending aiptasia from the old rock replace and take out some more of the other ones that are infected.
In this way you don't loose so much of what is healthy and good like the pods, worms and other critters that you don't want to loose all at one time. Continue to rotate the rocks untill you have nearly won the battle and the peppermint shrimp can keep what ever is left under control.
Early on I had a few peppermint shrimp in my tank to control aipasia as well, when they died off I never replaced the shrimp and have no aiptasia for 2 years now.
Thomas

 

[fishieness]

hmmm.... thats some smart thinking thomas!

 

[pbienkiewi]

Originally Posted by miked0523
You could try a silver scat. It is a brackish water fish and has been known to devour aiptasia.I had a bad infestation and what I did was pull the rocks out and scrub them in a seperate contaner with a hard brush. this wont get rid of them all but will make it manigible then use joes juice to kill what ever comes back.

I converted Scats and Mono's to saltwater. Took 1 week and they were fine. But they poop all over the place. so I traded them in

 

[benter]

what about the berghia nudibranchs..I believe that is what they are called? Anyone have any experience with them..I have heard that they will devour aiptaisia to the point that you have to be prepared to pass them on to a friend after they have eaten them all out of your tank to keep them alive!!

 

[milomlo]

Originally Posted by Benter
what about the berghia nudibranchs..I believe that is what they are called? Anyone have any experience with them..I have heard that they will devour aiptaisia to the point that you have to be prepared to pass them on to a friend after they have eaten them all out of your tank to keep them alive!!

Yes that is true. All they eat is the Aiptaisia, so when they clean it up they will die

 

[brotox]

I have seen those nudis for sale on the big auction site. They can be quite expensive, but with that bad of a problem, it might not be a bad idea.