Severe Aiptasia problem still...

surbas

surbas

New Member
Ok, I've had a severe aiptasia problem in my tank for a couple years now. I've tried, injecting them with lemom juice, pickling lime and even baking soda. I've also tried peppermint shrimp a few times with no luck. Nothing seems to work, so I decided to remove all the live rock from my tank. The stuff is even growing on my protein skimmer pump and wavemaker! My tank is only 40 gallons and I don't have any coral only fish and some snails/crabs. So now what should I do to help clean up the tank and get rid of the aiptasia?
Scott
UPDATE 2-17-2011
All aiptasia have been successfully eradicated from my tank, my live rock is still in another tank aiptasia free as well. I soaked the live rock in bleach and now have it curing in a separate tank. After removing the live rock, I used Aiptasia X to get rid of any aiptasia growing in the sand bed and other strange places. All fish and inverts are doing fine.
 
hunt

hunt

Active Member
i would try a few berghia nudibranches...they only eat aiptasia and once the aiptasia is gone they die off. You could also try a copperband butterfly they can eat it but arnt always a sure thing. Peppermint shrimp do eat aiptasia...but ususally only the smaller ones. You could also try a commercial aiptasia killer like joes juice or aiptasia X.
 
J

jstdv8

Guest
if you apply the lime paste you have to suck them out or else they mey jsut come back. I suggest this for joes juice and aiptasia X as well.
 
deejeff442

deejeff442

Active Member
i have noticed that peppermint shrimp work great.but i have tried with a few and it didnt work.then i added a few more and all gone.so what i noticed is it takes more than a couple shrimp to eat them up.peppermint shrimp are very insecure in singles.i have one in my 250 gallon for a year now and have seen him only a few times.they must do better work in numbers.
 
J

jstdv8

Guest
It's my beleif that they do great to begin with because they hanvt gotten used to eating your fish food yet. My peppermint went to twon on aips when i first got him but after he got hooked on my homemade food there were no more aiptasia being eaten.
 
deejeff442

deejeff442

Active Member
yea maybe but once the aptasia is gone and you dont bring any more in the tank.probably dont matter.i wish i had aptasia instead of bubble algae right now.
 
tangs rule

tangs rule

Active Member
Quote:
Originally Posted by surbas http:///forum/thread/382758/severe-aiptasia-problem-still#post_3342763
Ok, I've had a severe aiptasia problem in my tank for a couple years now. I've tried, injecting them with lemom juice, pickling lime and even baking soda. I've also tried peppermint shrimp a few times with no luck. Nothing seems to work, so I decided to remove all the live rock from my tank. The stuff is even growing on my protein skimmer pump and wavemaker! My tank is only 40 gallons and I don't have any coral only fish and some snails/crabs. So now what should I do to help clean up the tank and get rid of the aiptasia?
Scott
I've been there and KNOW how severe they can be. My 90 got them back in '05 or so and I started the treatments. By '06 I was really getting tired of 3x per week "injecting sessions" and realized I was loosing the battle - they were everywhere! HUNDREDS of them..... By 07 or 08 I gave up and broke down the tank. put the fish into a hotel tank, the liverock outside for 3 weeks, sterilized the aroganite gravel by boiling, and sterilized the tank/filters/powerheads and everything else with clorox. After purging&flushing the tank and equipment I slowly brought it back online over 3 months. I started it all over, from the "cycle" forward.
I had them so bad the only place they would NOT grow is the element portion of the heater - and a breakout like that is not controlable by fish or nudis that eat them. They seemed to reproduce hourly!
Today that tank is still aiptasia free but a larger DT is not, but they have not exploded like they did back then. I am "controling" them with injections of kalkwasser for now, but it's just the occasional 2-3 that I see, not the 60-80 as before... I just gotta remember to never cross contaminate the tanks!!
Am not recommending this process, but I know from experience what an EXPLOSIVE outbreak of aiptasia can be like, and this is a sure bet on getting rid of them, it just takes 3 months or so and is a true PITA.
 
blackjacktang

blackjacktang

Active Member
I also had a sever problem with thses annoying little idiots. I just removed everything with aipatsia on it, and let it sit in RO water for an hour, put it back nad BAM its gone. But the liverock become dead rock on the downside
 
tangs rule

tangs rule

Active Member
Quote:
Originally Posted by Blackjacktang http:///forum/thread/382758/severe-aiptasia-problem-still#post_3346430
I also had a sever problem with thses annoying little idiots. I just removed everything with aipatsia on it, and let it sit in RO water for an hour, put it back nad BAM its gone. But the liverock become dead rock on the downside
Yup, My liverock really died off by sitting outside so long, but after the purge, with good lighting and water quality - it came back just fine - but it took 9 months. And I no longer had to kill "spots" of the coraline algae by injecting kalkwasser on the glassrose/aiptasia devils. Before the purge, my liverock had dozens of white patches all over cause I was killing it of in spots every other day as I attacked the individual anemones. Anyone that desperate to finally rid their system of these would have to find a hotel tank for any fish and cleanup crew, cause the substrate and liverock will be contaminated with them, and a strong die off of the substrate and rock is required to totally eliminate them, and the tank and all equip must also be sterilized. Also any refugium or sump will also have to be killed off and contents replaced. I had them growing on my macro alage in the fuge!! It's a complete redo process from the "cycle" fwd.....
Any corals have to go into an isolated system and gradually purged of aiptasia - mine spent months in isolation ridding them to where 2 months went by with NO signs of them on ANY coral or attached rock. The coral species loss was high sadly - and that event is what got me out of the "reef tank" business..
It was a very time consuming and expensive process, and not recommeded. It's SO much easier to isolate ANY new coral or addition for weeks prior to adding to a DT, cause it only takes 1 aiptasia to begin a nightmare.
My question to those who use shrimps or nudibranchs to control or rid their system of them would be: if you remove the aiptasia eaters, do they return? ? ? I know how deep some aiptasia can bury their "roots" in rock crevices and find it hard to believe in a SEVERE case of them (hundreds), the eaters could truly rid them, but I could be totally wrong. Maybe I never gave the shrimps enough time.......I'd love some feedback on the subject!!
 
deejeff442

deejeff442

Active Member
years ago my 90 reef had hundreds of them in it.i added 12 medium sized peppermints and they were gone in a few weeks.never came back.i kept a couple shrimp in there but took the rest i could catch back to the store .
 
tangs rule

tangs rule

Active Member
Thanks for the info 442!! maybe my P shrimps were eating fish food instead of aiptasia. I'll try them again in my 125.....with only 2-3 aiptasia showing up in a week, the shrimps should have an easy time at it. Thanks again!
 
navaljonf

navaljonf

New Member
I've found peppermint shrimp to be borderline worthless when it comes to aiptasia. Your best bet is using AiptasiaX. It's the only thing that worked for me when I had an outbreak in my 30 gal.
 
J

jstdv8

Guest
When I first got a bunch of LR from a local reefer the rocks ahd hundreds and hundreds of aiptasia, I kalk pasted them over about 3 weeks time a little at a time so I didn't spike the Pha nd kill my corals.
I was aiptasia free for at least 7 months and then I got a piece of LR from a local reefer that ahd a couple on it and i didn't take care of it right away.
Let it go for about 2 months now and now I have around a hundred I'm guessing, some are large some are small.
Just last night I pasted about 40 or so (thats all I do at a time) and sucked them out with a turkey baster. couple more sessions of that and I'll be back to 0 again in no time.
I have a peppermint shrimp in the tank, but he's very used to the food i feed the fish and no longer finds aiptasia tempting.
when I think i've got allt he ones I can see pasted I'm going to go get anotehr peppermint to take care of any I don't see and I'm not going to feed for a few days and only every third day for a few weeks so I know the peppermint is doing his job. after that they should be gone. Worked once...
 
surbas

surbas

New Member
I finally decided enough is enough. I removed all live rock and soaked it all in bleach and then set it outside in the cold for a week or so. I also throughly cleaned my skimmer, powerhead, heater and pump. Vacuumed the heck out of the sand bed. Zapped the few aiptasia left with a pickling lime paste, vacuumed the remains up. I'm re-curing the rock in a separate tank until I'm sure the aiptasia is gone.
 
blackjacktang

blackjacktang

Active Member
Quote:
Originally Posted by surbas http:///forum/thread/382758/severe-aiptasia-problem-still#post_3348101
I finally decided enough is enough. I removed all live rock and soaked it all in bleach and then set it outside in the cold for a week or so. I also throughly cleaned my skimmer, powerhead, heater and pump. Vacuumed the heck out of the sand bed. Zapped the few aiptasia left with a pickling lime paste, vacuumed the remains up. I'm re-curing the rock in a separate tank until I'm sure the aiptasia is gone.
thats right show them whos boss!
 
J

jstdv8

Guest
In his case the aiptasia won. Poor guy has to start over from scratch.
 
J

jstdv8

Guest
I don't get it. I've always found aiptasia to be one of the easiest things to keep in check or to completely exterminate in our hobby.
Not nearly as difficult as GHA, byprosis or cyano.
I couldnt imagine having to kill off all my live rock and start from scratch, I think I'd rather have aiptasia LOL
 
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