Aiptasia "Worst outbreak ever controlled in 3 months"

[TimeConsumer]

I'm in the process of using nudibranchs on my outbreak. They have been in there for about 3 weeks now. I'm hoping for results around week 8.

[ReeferBatman]

Time to buy about 30 peppermint shrimp and let them do their jobs...

Then sell them back to the LFS at a heavy discount (-60-70% purchase price) for store credit...

Problem solved.



Make sure you get the 'good kind' that eat aiptasia.

http://suite101.com/article/peppermi...posters-a42649

[ashish]

Peppermint shrimp - I have yet to see eat one of 1000's of aiptasia that where at close range and monitored. Soon as I added the peppermint shrimp to my DT I was down to 6 instantly. I do think the odds of having a few peppermint shrimps survive long term in a reef tank is highly unlikely. I have had blood fire shrimp and skunk vanish with in 6 months, peppermint shrimp are almost invisible and the best time to spot them is at night. They do a great job of keeping LR free of new aiptasia. I see now why they do the job but they won't touch anything that's visible.. Which is fine since once your aiptasia is manageable your shrimps will take care of the rest. Its also tough finding the peppermint shrimps that will eat aiptasia. I would cut down on your frozen foods aswell as the peppmint shrimp may become dependent on eating just that. It's not cheap buying/replacing/losing peppermint shrimps. I spend $40 on 8 (few weeks later) I have 2. Lucky for me my LFS really has no marine aquarium business so they usually always have them b/c no one in clearfield buys shrimps for $6 a pop..Which is cheap to me

[Bladez]

I had very much the same problem in my 200 gallon display and I tried every mechanical means of removal except removing the rock and letting it dry out.

My cure was the purchase of a copper band butterfly fish that ate every single one within a few weeks or so...

This is just one large rock in the mid section of my 7' tank.

[Bladez]

Had one hitching a ride on a snail...

[ashish]

Originally Posted by Bladez

I had very much the same problem in my 200 gallon display and I tried every mechanical means of removal except removing the rock and letting it dry out.

My cure was the purchase of a copper band butterfly fish that ate every single one within a few weeks or so...

This is just one large rock in the mid section of my 7' tank.

Your aiptasia problem is pretty bad.. But IMO not that bad.
They are not completely covering the LR; so can easily be target with aiptasia X. You will probably not have to remove the rock. If you want remove a few pieces kill aiptasia in a seperate tank and put them in your sump. They won't multiple fast in your sump without lighting or direct feeding.
Just do a small section at a time (10-20 per treatment). Don't think you can get them all at ones or they will reproduce fast. I'd say your aiptasia problem can be solved but theres a skill in using aiptasia-x. Patients and making sure the entire oral disk is covered and then some. Good luck hope the copperband's work but they really have a track record of not surviving long-term in captivity. I wish they would just leave these delicate species in the reefs.

[Bladez]

The short story:
I built a house and moved in in august of 08' at that point I wasn't ready to restart my system so I put all of my live rock to a dark sump for around 8 months. In that time it appeared that all the Aiptasia was gone however I restarted my system in early 2009 and within a few months it was clear that what I though was gone was still there only as seedlings. I spent the next 6-8 months trying to kill the F#$%ers using Aiptasia X, injecting them with caulk paste and or boiling water, taking the rock out and torching them, applying super glue over them etc... By this time I had thousands of them covering everything in my 200 gallon peninsula style tank - all you are seeing in the pic is one side of one rock.

About 2 years ago I got desperate and posted a request in the WTB section for a healthy Aiptasia eating CBB. Fortunately a fellow reefer came through and shipped me one for around $100 including the shipping. As I stated within a few weeks every Aiptasia was gone.

I have been pest free (more or less) since I acquired him and he is healthy feeding on a diet of mysis, clam & sheet algae - he is one of my favorite fish.

Highly recommended assuming you get the right specimen.

Originally Posted by ashish

Your aiptasia problem is pretty bad.. But IMO not that bad.
They are not completely covering the LR; so can easily be target with aiptasia X. You will probably not have to remove the rock. If you want remove a few pieces kill aiptasia in a seperate tank and put them in your sump. They won't multiple fast in your sump without lighting or direct feeding.
Just do a small section at a time (10-20 per treatment). Don't think you can get them all at ones or they will reproduce fast. I'd say your aiptasia problem can be solved but theres a skill in using aiptasia-x. Patients and making sure the entire oral disk is covered and then some. Good luck hope the copperband's work but they really have a track record of not surviving long-term in captivity. I wish they would just leave these delicate species in the reefs.

[Ron Reefman]

Originally Posted by Bladez

About 2 years ago I got desperate and posted a request in the WTB section for a healthy Aiptasia eating CBB. Fortunately a fellow reefer came through and shipped me one for around $100 including the shipping. As I stated within a few weeks every Aiptasia was gone.

I have been pest free (more or less) since I acquired him and he is healthy feeding on a diet of mysis, clam & sheet algae - he is one of my favorite fish.

Highly recommended assuming you get the right specimen.

And there is the rub. I've had 3 of them and I'm lucky if they survive 2-4 weeks. I also had a very mature Muller Butterfly who ate most of the aiptasia over a couple of months and then starved to death over 3-4 weeks, because I couldn't get it to eat anything but live food. And there were too many other fish in the tank that would out compete the Butterfly for food. They tend to be very slow and deliberate eaters and several of my otherwise peaceful fish go crazy at feeding time.

[ashish]

Just found this picture on my phone from January 13.
Check out the clam covered with aiptasia

[SoLiD]

Geezuss guys; That's a ton of Aiptasia!!! I catch peppermint shrimp by the hundreds so I've never had a problem eradicating aiptasia from live rock. I sure wish I could send everyone of you guys with this dilemma 50 or so. I catch between 200-500 in one night at the Port Aransas jetties. Then I just give them away. They mow over aiptasia in no time if you don't over feed your tank.

[ashish]

Originally Posted by SoLiD

Geezuss guys; That's a ton of Aiptasia!!! I catch peppermint shrimp by the hundreds so I've never had a problem eradicating aiptasia from live rock. I sure wish I could send everyone of you guys with this dilemma 50 or so. I catch between 200-500 in one night at the Port Aransas jetties. Then I just give them away. They mow over aiptasia in no time if you don't over feed your tank.

hahaha,,At first glance I thought i was looking at aiptasia. Your a nice guy for catching them and giving them away and not charging people
for a disease.lol..
I think you could make a lot of money selling these for cheap instead of the $8+ retail price (which is to much) considering 80% don't last. You can easily sell them for $2 each but will have to box and ship. Still worth it.

[SoLiD]

I've had 4 big peps in my tank for almost 2 years. They can live long in the right conditions.

[Indusrty]

How do you catch them?

[Reeferz412]

I just lost my pepper, it was almost 3 years old!

[ashish]

I got 8 in feb 13, and now I have 2. These 2 seem like survivers; wonder why the other 6 went to fast. It's almost like I dropped 8 in and there was only 5 the next day...Next time i buy peppermints I think i will put them in the LR section of my filter so they are 100% acclimate.

[Hal]

Originally Posted by ashish

I think you could make a lot of money selling these for cheap instead of the $8+ retail price (which is to much) considering 80% don't last. You can easily sell them for $2 each but will have to box and ship. Still worth it.

+1 I'd buy 20.

Unfortunately, my tank currently looks a lot like the OP's. Ever since my copperband died they made a comeback. Not one in sight when my CBB was alive.

[ashish]

comeback..lol
Mine are making a comeback, in my overflow,My tank is so nutrient free that they don't stand a chance with my 2 peep's..if i lost them I'd cry

[Siasl]

Congrats on an awesome job well done. I have to admit, I had a nano tank with the same level of outbreak and I just called it quits. It is good to see the good guys win once in a while.

[ashish]

yeappp they can be controlled and turned into a positive (food source for the shrimps).
Still haven't had to use my aiptasia X for over 2 months...

[Jeremy1988]

Well my 2 cents on this...and I'm sure I will get nailed to the cross here. Man o man...okay reefers. You guys have a civic duty to do AS MUCH FOR YOUR FISH AS POSSIBLE. I dont care what the circumstances are you take care of that damn tank. BEFORE YOU GET INTO THE HOBBY, you need to make sure you have back up contingency plans. Meaning, you are willing to spend whatever money you need to take care of the tank. If you are going to quote unquote "Be away from home" from home for a while you beat you sweet a** you need to find away to hire someone to watch over it. Okay...so I get the people saying "Well hey man we didnt know we would be gone that long". It's called proper planning guys and gals. So basically its like saying "Well lets get a dog babe" You and your wife get the dog and then figure it out as you go. No...not the way it should work. Its not fair to the animals or what have you. I keep seeing all these post of, well the power went out and I lost everything, well this happened and that happened. Look...no literally look at your tank everyday. Make a journal, spend good money on good equipment, read and research...do lots of this. Then use common sense and logic...along with what the majority says and you should be okay. I'm so sick and tired of people not doing extensive research before hand and getting into this hobby. I ready books apon books before I embarked on this stuff and to this day have had zero problems minor small things.

[ashish]

The tank is still going strong. The Aiptasia never came back and going on 4 years after original posting.

[djbon]

Kill it if you see one!. Letting it grow a bit will be your worst nightmare. The moment i saw one, even a tiny bit of it will be "kalked" straight away.

[ComforablyNumb]

In my tank, none of the other fish pays any attention whatsoever to my matted filefish. Its taken care of my aiptasia for months now. He likes to curl up like a dead leaf and float along the bottom, but spends most of his time pecking around the rocks. Never touches a coral. Recommended.

[ashish]

Peppermint shrimp X10 will eat them before you even see them. the ones you miss just wack them with aiptasia X. Oh and buy the big refill =)

[Michael Hoaster]

I'd like to share a method I stumbled onto that kills aiptasias too.

First let me say I had some success with peppermint shrimp and filefish. The problem for me was that they both go after other stuff that I didn't want them eating. So after removing them, the aiptasias came back. I then invested in Berghia nudibranchs, which also are effective, but awfully expensive. They are, in my opinion the best aiptasia controller, and an elegant, natural solution.

Then my tank got ICH. I decided to treat it with hypo salinity, in my display rather than QT, as I was unable to catch the fish.

Long story short, two weeks into treatment, and my aiptasias are gone. So I will toss this method into the ring! Hypo kills aiptasias.

Obviously, this method will not be practical for many, but it is another way to do it. If you are in a situation where you don't mind treating your whole display, this could be an effective (and cheap!) alternative.