Aiptasia Control

**tdkarl** · 09-28-2007, 08:09 PM

Anyone know what fish are good for aiptasia control?

**Mr. Tang** · 09-28-2007, 08:29 PM

cooperbanded butterfly fish

**tdkarl** · 09-29-2007, 10:15 AM

actually just read an interesting article on aptasia control, sugest not using butterfly fish. Goes into great detail about how to control them:
Aiptasia

**tdkarl** · 09-29-2007, 10:48 AM

anyone have expereince with Berghia Nudibranch's? I hear they are the best for aiptasia control.

**Pescaiolo** · 09-29-2007, 11:48 AM

I have. They are very expensive. It is not worth the hassle of putting them in the tank and hoping they take care of it. The aiptasia will come back. It is best to start with a pair and raise them. The only part that sucks about this is you have to farm the aiptasia to feed the nudibranchs since aiptasia is there only food source. You really have to stay on top of it and change the water in the containers often. If you feed them and keep them healthy you have a good number of them to let loose in your system and they have a better chance of getting rid of the aiptasia. If you keep the culture you can sell the nudibranchs locally or pass them on in your local reef club. If you ever get another outbreak you can easily obtain more.

Raising them is easy, you can use shot glasses if you want. Use your tank water or water mixed to a SG of 1.024. You will have to feed them to get them to mate so stick a few small or medium sized aiptasia in the water. They are nocturnal so you will want to keep these containers in the dark or with minimal light. Try not to overfeed them and once again make sure the water is changed and clean for them. The eggs looks like spirals of small pin tips strung together. You take these eggs out and put them in a separate smaller container(shot glass size) to separate each brood. They will lay eggs several times. You will want to keep the containers covered since these guys like to crawl. They also crawl on the surface of the water...upside down, meaning they cling to the surface tension in the reverse. Really neat to watch! They are also very cool looking creatures and since they only eat aiptasia they are reef safe. This is a process so it might take a while for it to take off, Id say about 3 weeks at the fastest.

Peppermint shrimp eat aiptasia. I have seen several ways of coaxing them into eating aitasia. Feed the aiptasia something the shrimp likes to eat is one way of getting them to eat aiptasia. The way I do it and it seems to be a sure fire way of doing it, is to starve them. I know this seems cruel and mean but hear me out first. Set the shrimp in a QT and don't feed it anything for at least 36 hours. After this time set him in your DT after the lights have gone out. He will go straight to feeding on aiptasia because he is hungry. He will clean your tank out in a couple of nights. The more of them you have the better. Of course the larger your system the more shirmps you will need.

You could also use hot water(almost boiling), lemon juice, kalkwasser, vinegar and there are a few commercial products, I don't have much experience with them but I hear Joe's Juice is good. Get a syringe and inject the aiptasia with your concoction and they will turn black and fall off in a day or so. you will want to keep an eye on your water parameters to make sure you aren't knocking anything out of wack by putting this stuff in your system.

Hope this helps! I am actually looking for Aiptasia for filtration if you want to get rid of any let me know!

**CarmieJo** · 09-29-2007, 01:07 PM

Here is a thread on ProjectDIBS with the same problem. Got an Aiptasia problem - Page 2 - Project DIBS Forums

**FishLips** · 10-01-2007, 09:57 PM

Originally Posted by tdkarl

Anyone know what fish are good for aiptasia control?

Go to a local pharmacy and purchase an Insulin Syringe and use it to inject lemon juice into each of them. If you have ALOT of them then space the injections over a week or so. You dont want the acid in the lemon juice to throw your PH off. DONT try to rip them out as the little pieces will land and they will bloom in those areas. There are some products on the market but when I had them a very very long time ago I got rid of them using the method above. A little goes a long way.

**Amphibious** · 10-02-2007, 08:09 AM

What has worked without fail and without harm to other anemones or corals is Joe's Juice. I've been using and selling it for 3 years without one complaint from customers. It's easy to use, just feed the Aptasia the juice. No injecting, no worry about changing PH, no expensive Berghia ($15 each) just results.

Here's the link on my web site - Joe's Juice

Dick

**Phurst** · 10-02-2007, 11:15 AM

Ah, just ordered some. Have a hard time finding it localy. Thanks Dick.

**Amphibious** · 10-02-2007, 11:35 AM

Thank you, Phurst! It will go out US Postal today.

Dick

**doctorthompson** · 10-03-2007, 08:58 PM

Originally Posted by Amphibious

What has worked without fail and without harm to other anemones or corals is Joe's Juice. I've been using and selling it for 3 years without one complaint from customers. It's easy to use, just feed the Aptasia the juice. No injecting, no worry about changing PH, no expensive Berghia ($15 each) just results.

I keep Joe's Juice around for quick kills when I see aiptasia stinging other livestock but I can't see how it could eradicate an entire population unless you keep each chunk of live rock in a QT tank after killing the aiptasia. Joe's Juice does NOT destroy the anemone's pedal lacerates.

I've had some success manually placing bristleworms (purple, not pink, no idea on the species) on the rock after "juicing" an anemone, and also with kalk paste applied after the Joe's Juice has dissolved the main body -- FWIW the pedal lacerates will typically be located on the rock in a circle no wider than the original anemone's height. So if I "juice" a 1 inch tall aiptasia and want to make sure no new ones spring from the ashes, I'll apply a tiny bit of kalk paste to a 1 inch wide circular area on the rock centered where the anemone was.

If you can remove the rock and keep it in QT as you eradicate the anemones (and move it to a third tank to hold afterwards so it doesn't become re-infected) you will have a better chance of success with whatever method you choose, even if it's a copperband or troop of peppermint shrimp. Unfortunately most folks don't even have QT tanks, and those that do usually don't have anything large enough to hold all their live rock.

Regarding berghia: I've only seen/heard of them failing when the initial colony was too small to begin with but they aren't a magic bullet either. They they move slowly and may need to be picked up and relocated a lot by the aquarist in the final few weeks of the eradication -- which could take up to 6 months to fully accomplish in a large tank, so keeping some Joe's Juice on hand would still be a good investment to protect your livestock and keep some "sting-free" zones in your live rock for your fish to sleep in.

**Amphibious** · 10-03-2007, 09:32 PM

Originally Posted by doctorthompson

Joe's Juice does NOT destroy the anemone's pedal lacerates.

I totally disagree with you on that one, doctorthompson. I've had total eradication of Aptasia in my 135. The difference might be that I don't wait until...

Originally Posted by doctorthompson

I keep Joe's Juice around for quick kills when I see Aptasia stinging other livestock

I zap them with Joe's Juice when ever I see them. If you wait till they are big enough to sting other corals then they have spread to other areas of the rock.

I've used and sold JJ for the last 3 years. Never had a problem, never had a complaint. In fact your statement about JJ not destroying the pedal lacerates is the first time I've ever heard such a thing. That has not been my experience.

Dick

**doctorthompson** · 10-03-2007, 09:54 PM

Originally Posted by Amphibious

I totally disagree with you on that one, doctorthompson. I've had total eradication of Aptasia in my 135.

Don't get me wrong, I know of more than a few people who have had 100% success with it, but I'm wondering if some other biological control was also a factor in their success (perhaps a peppermint shrimp or copperband that they thought wasn't doing a good job before buying the Joe's Juice turned out to at least be capable of preventing regrowth? I don't know...)

I've used and sold JJ for the last 3 years. Never had a problem, never had a complaint. In fact your statement about JJ not destroying the pedal lacerates is the first time I've ever heard such a thing. That has not been my experience.

I know of quite a few people (Eric Borneman being one of them) who have witnessed aiptasia regrowing after being melted away with Joe's Juice. I did an informal test with 12 small rubble chunks in a small 5g tank and also witnessed this regrowth in 8 out of 12 applications. I wish I wasn't in the process of moving right now or I'd consider setting up one of my smaller QT tanks and doing this again while taking pictures -- although I'd be in a bit of a moral quandary since I like their product.