View Full Version : How can I rid those little Aiptasia muthas!##@!
ToadFish
10/31/2001, 09:12 PM
In our reef tank, we are constantly injecting the little creeps with “stop aiptasia�. Some have died and others just shake it off and laugh at you. I have been told they can take over your tank is you don't keep them in check. We bought some peppermint shrimp because we were told they love to eat them. I haven't noticed any difference. I think the shrimp are basically worthless. The other day in the very back of the reef and the bottom (you know, the place that is impossible to get to without COMPLETELY taking it apart), there we spotted the mother of all aiptasia. You would think the peppermint shrimp would have a smorgasbord, NOT!
Help! Any suggestions?
Ben
Panda
10/31/2001, 09:40 PM
I've heard that Stop Aiptasia work fairly well if you keep on it. Peppermints are, from what I've read and heard, a hit or miss chance. Some will eat them, some won't, but the good news is they will produce offspring that will feed that tank somewhat. There's some folks around here that have had great success with copperband butterfly's. If you choose to go that route, just make sure you have the proper setup, experience and knowledge to take care of it once it eats all the "aips"
Dave
sirk333
10/31/2001, 10:52 PM
Peppermints will eat the small ones. You need to blast the Biggin' with boiling water in a turkey baster. Also cut way down on your feeding. If the shrimp are getting easy meals, they are less inclined to go after the ap's.
ScavDog
10/31/2001, 11:34 PM
Ive nuked em with concentrated Kalkwasser in a plastic syringe. They basically melt.
Panda
11/01/2001, 08:58 AM
sirk333,
I tried the boilling water attack last night and this morning the ones that I actually got to didn't seem to be out and about like they usually are. COOL! Peppermints will be here Friday to take care of the rest of the aip's (hopefully).
Dave
I've been trying both the kalk method and the boiling water method with little, if any, success. The day before this thread started, I attempted to boil all the Aiptasia in my main tank and tried kalk on the refugium.
As for the boiling, they looked pretty well dead for about 12 hours. 48 hours later...they're alive and well minus a few tentacles.
On the kalk, all of the ones I hit lost their crown, but it doesn't look to me like the base is dead. That's the same experience I've had in the main tank in the past as well. Within a few days, they typically return.
Am I missing something here, or are they just super Aiptasia? :(
Toadfish, I have had and have great success with my one Peppermint shrimp, I recommend getting a small one. on my reef page I have a link to a good sized Aptasia that it munched on till it was gone.
ron4675
11/01/2001, 10:09 AM
I know you said you tried stop aptaisa but that is all that worked for me. I tried kalk, boiling water, shrimp but nothing worked. I used ALOT of stop on each aptaisa and sometimes needed to do multiple hits over a few days but sure enough now I don't have any (that I can see) you really need to coat them both around the mouth base and once they are shrivled up all over to truly kill them. That is the experience I had.
budhaboy
11/01/2001, 02:24 PM
I tried Peppermint shrimp- my fish really loved that snak, I tried Kalk, boiling water and a combination- boiling kalk no affect- what I do is use marine epoxy- get a batch ready, touch the aiptasia with your finger and as it retracts in the hole its anchored in just fill it in with a pinch of epoxy.the coraline algae covers the dried epoxy in a very short time.
Rigdoc2000
11/02/2001, 08:47 PM
Copper banded and black banded butterflies are supposed to eat them. But they are delicate fish.
Cliff
andya
11/03/2001, 09:03 PM
Ihad some in my sump i done the the same as ron no probs;) .
andy
I finally got ahead in the game. I'm not sure why it went better this time, but the kalk method seems to have killed the ones I hit. Unfortunately, they had a lot of babies after one use of boiling water so I'll have to continue wiping them out when they're big enough to find. Hopefully, my limpets will rediscover the joy of eating aiptasia and help me out...
Phyllis
11/04/2001, 10:14 AM
Hi,
It is very important that you get the correct peppermint shrimp. There are 2 kinds with that name. Pet Warehouse carries the right one. Get a picture of it to make sure it's the right one. Go to www.petwarehouse.com for the correct name. I wiped my 20 or so aiptasia out by killing off the big ones with very hot boiling water and a turkey baster. The shrimp will only eat the small ones. Then I purchased 8 peppermint shrimp. I figured if one shrimp didn't want to eat them another one would. They ate them right away and I haven't seen anothrer since. It's been a couple of months. Hope this helps.
Phyllis
ToadFish
11/04/2001, 02:45 PM
Phyllis, thanks for that information. It was very helpful. Ben
eukaryote
11/05/2001, 11:44 AM
Peppermint shrimp worked for me too. I haven't seen an aiptasia in many months since adding a pair of peppermints. I got mine from premium aquatics.
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