vinegar or lemon juice for aiptasia
 

Ok - I'm losing the aiptasia battle.

Joe's Juice - they wilt for a few days and come back
Inject with Vinegar - they seemed to multiply!

Now I'm considering using hot water with a mixture of either lemon juice and/or vinegar.

My question is which is safer for the aquarium? I am going to turn off my powerheads tonight and do my experiement but since I'll be treating a fair amount of aiptasia, which is safer?

I'm going to do probably 1 part of lemon juice to very hot or boiling water.

Any advise or other methods? I added 2 peppermint shrimp but there's no way they can tackle the bulk... i need to do something.

Why don't you use kalk? That get's ones that I've seen crop up typically in one shot.

Dave

Thought about that but since I don't have any at home I thought I'd try either lemon juice or hot water first to see if it works before I go out and buy some.

The stuff is so cheap though :)

Mrs. Wages Pickling Lime. Available at 'most' grocery stores. Exact same thing as kalk... EXACT! Pick it up, save some money and bust some aiptasia ***!!

I've tried the vinegar method with a tiny diabetic syringe... no luck. And vinegar or lemon juice may affect your pH/dKH depending on the amount you use and the size of the tank. I'm going to try the kalk method. I hear it works well.

On a side note, will kalk paste damage any corals it gets on..? I have a small one right in between some of my zoanthids, and I don't want to bring down the "Wrath of the Kalk" on them if I don't need to.

The only thing that has worked for me is straight boiling vinegar injected with a big ol 18G needle. I have tried kalk, lemon juice, joes juice, etc and none of it has done the trick. When I hit them with this stuff they are GONE. Works great for stray mushrooms too!

It will mess your pH up pretty quickly though so be careful. I have a large amount of water so it doesn't change mine, but could spell disaster for a smaller tank.

Kalk paste can damage corals, but if applied properly it's not going to kill the zoos.

What would be "applied properly" then..? Simply making sure to avoid getting any on the zoanthids?

If it's one or two, I'd just remove the rock and chip the little buggers off. I've tried all kinds of stuff, from Joe's Juice to epoxying over them and the only sure fire thing I've found is physical removal. If you've got an infestation, you have my sympathies :(

I, myself, have maybe 4 or 5 little ones on some new frags. I've never had to deal with them before, so I'm just trying to figure out how to decimate their tiny population before it gets out of hand.

I can probably chip off a few of them. But one or two are in tight proximity to corals, and I just don't want to cause problems.

I use a diabetic needle too to get the aptaisia. I use vinegar and if I can't stab the bugger shoot the entire needles worth down their hole. Usually kills'em dead (or as my friend would say " Kills'em in half!") or sometimes takes 2 shots, but I rarely see anything after that.

Dan

Gotta be careful if your tank's small, though. I hear that even a couple mL's can cause your dKH to drop a notable amount.

Been useing joe's juice on mine.Took a couple of times but its been working.

I tried lemon juice in a small needle I tried to stick the little booger but he retracted immediately. I just shot it at him and he wilted for about 2 days and now he's back. I am going to try GARFS recipe with the pickling lime and the vet syringe tonight I will let you know how I do.

I hade a few of these and some corn anemonees too. I used Kalkwasser powder mixed with water. I used the plastic measurer (it is used to measure .5ml water) that came with one of the test kits. Put it right up to its mouth and slowly squirt out the kalk. It closes up around the tip and bingo! I've got ya. Keep going till its empty.

Now be warned doing this in the tank can get calk everywhere. IT tends to float around. Here is some tips:

1. Shut off the flow. LAst thing ypu need is water flow pushing the kalk over to your candycane coral.

2. Be ready with airline tubing. I create a syphin with the tubing to suckup the peices of kalk that float away. This can take awhile. It does make a mess.

3. Be ready with some fresh salt water to replace the water you syphon off.

4. rinse-repeat. If you got them you will get them again. Thats why they are the pest that they are. Have fun - You didn't think that keeping a salt water tank was going to be easy!

A good stick with a needle of lemon juice does a great job. If your nem didn't die it's because you didn't stick it good.

shoot it full of part a

I think I'm going to try the lemon juice trick. Kalk seems to have too many negatives to it. I have too much to take the rock out.

I suppose I could get a copperband but i haven't seen one around in a while and also i think it would fight with my yellow tang.

Shoot it full of "part a"? You mean the calcium chloride solution from Randy's 2-part DIY supplement? Shoot... I just made some of that! And I need to add some to the tank! Maybe that'll do it. :) After all, it is similar to kalk, isn't it? Or is that the baking soda solution..?

Update - Last night I shut down the pumps and probably went through 5 - 6ml of lemon juice in a syringe. All aiptasia retracted and withered. When I turned my pumps back on 2 or 3 large ones totally detached from the rocks dead. Looks like it worked but I'll continue to monitor their growth...

All the fish are fine and eating so the lemon juice didn't upset anyone...

I'd just do a quick test of your parameters, specifically dKH (alkalinity), to make sure everything's still where it should be. Acids can lower dKH, and sometimes even pH. Lower dKH may even alter calcium levels, too, since they're somewhat tied together.

This almost makes me prefer to try the kalk method, as that'll buffer the water instead. A larger tank may not see this problem, but mine's only 50 gallons of total water volume.

But on a brighter note, congrats on some confirmed kills! :) We should put little decals on our tanks for each aptasia we kill, like fighter pilots. :lol:

I was very successful in using boiling water in a syringe. The trick is to get the water to a rolling boil. Set the pot by the tank. Suck some water into the syringe and quickly stick your arm in the tank to stab it in the mouth. I found you need to do this process for each one because the water quickly cools down in the tank.

[QUOTE][i]<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11549076#post11549076 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Pmolan [/i]
[B]I was very successful in using boiling water in a syringe. The trick is to get the water to a rolling boil. Set the pot by the tank. Suck some water into the syringe and quickly stick your arm in the tank to stab it in the mouth. I found you need to do this process for each one because the water quickly cools down in the tank. [/B][/QUOTE]

You're using a glass needle, right?


As for the dKH, I'll do a test and water change when I get home.

I've had great success simply siphoning them out. It won't "eliminate" them. But I can get rid of each one that I can get to.

I put an 18" long piece of 3/8" rigid tube into a 4-5' length of 3/8" hose.

On the end of the hose I tie-strap a fine filter bag and put that in my sump.

Then, I take the rigid tube end and put it up to one of my Maxi-Jets that are running in my main tank to start the flow of water.

Then, put that rigid tube over the aiptasia (all the way down to the rock). The aiptasia will get stressed from all that flow and simply, let go (may take a few seconds). It will go through the tubing and into the filter bag.

I keep going until I get everyone out. After a few times, now, I only have to do that every few months.

It has been the best way I've come up with to get rid of them.