aptasis GONE!!!

jimmer · #1 12/27/2007, 02:12 PM

these evil creatures were taking over my tank.the more i zapped them the more they showed up.the way i have my rockwork i couldnt get at many of them.i got 24 peppermint shrimp sent to my door overnite for $60 bucks.many were huge!!got from etropicals would reccomend them for building your own clean up package.as long as you hit 60 bucks shipping is free ya hear me FREE!first order did not go well i sent them a email at 3am and received full refund by 8:30 am.then i bought a Chaetodon kleini butterfly fish.not the most beautiful but this thing started tagging aptaisia within a couple hours in the tank.had read a article in one of the free magazines at one of the reef shops saying how great these were.they warned it might pick button polyps and that is the only thing it has bothered in my tank.all most all my aptasia is gone and it has been in the tank for 4 days!!!!i was really at the end of my rope cuz they were stinging corals pretty bad.couldnt risk putting another copperband in as i lost a couple over the last few months.well thers my story and petworld had one butterfly left for about 25 bucks

jjj1100 · #2 12/27/2007, 02:24 PM

well i have reallllly bad news and I hope your experience is different than mine. I did this same exact thing as you...i have a 300 g tank and had a bad aptaisia problem. So i found a too good to be true deal on pepper mint shrimps...ordered 30 of them for like a hundred bucks (this should have tipped me off that they weren't peppermint) and within 3 days bammmm all the aiptaisa was gone.

then within a week a colony of acan's was shreeded...my elegence coral wouldn't open and my frog spawn was shrinking...needless to say the little bastards started killing 100's of dollars of coral. They were so ballzy that they didn't even hide during the day...i watched them picking at corals. I had to take a day off from work and tear down my tank...loosing 2 fish in the process becuase they hid in the live rock...I had to take every piece of live rock and coral out of my tank and catch 30 shrimp with 2 nets....NOT FUN

but hey I don't want to pi$$ on your parade man maybe yours wont become weapons of mass coral destruction

Jeff

fatrip · #3 12/27/2007, 02:34 PM

sounds like camel shrimp...bummer...

Blugobi · #4 12/27/2007, 03:43 PM

Camel shrimp suck and I have to tell you I'm not one to watch another animal torture another, but I have this camel shrimp that I got a long time ago, needless to say it has picked off two fire fish and a goby....but the good news is my new mystery wrasse has this fun game where it likes to rip off the legs or an antenna every time it shows its ugly face...lol..... and sooner or later it is going to kill it........!

Jimmer do you have a picture of the peppermint shrimp...it will be easy to confirm.

Geo

Gary Majchrzak · #5 12/27/2007, 05:07 PM

I saw the magazine article on Klein's Butterflyfish.
Use one with great caution- a lot of people have had Klein's eat their prized corals!

mark fanara · #6 12/27/2007, 05:20 PM

I also had a problem with aptasia. They were out of control. They were growing off of my sps and everything. Nothing was working. I bought 34 peppermint shrimp from Petmart in Batavia and in two weeks all the aptasia are gone. I don't see them bothering anything else in the tank so far.

jimmer · #7 12/27/2007, 05:20 PM

you guys are killing me......gary what kind of corals??he has only bothered my button polyps and some other type polyps but seemed to have backed off and just be going after aptasia.ill try and get pic.got them from a rc sponser etropicals who have great feedback so hopefully i got the right ones

jimmer · #8 12/27/2007, 05:22 PM

i also plan on keeping the butterfly in my 40 gallon fuge

Gary Majchrzak · #9 12/27/2007, 05:41 PM

there is a recent glut of posts all over RC regarding Klein's Butterflyfish. (I'm guessing that a lot of people read the same article.) Many of the posts are in regards to this species eating SPS, LPS etc. etc.
The thing that many people don't understand is that the vast majority of Butterflyfish species will eat Aiptasia.

jimmer · #10 12/27/2007, 05:47 PM

i did know that most eat aptasia just thought this to be more overall reef safe

Gary Majchrzak · #11 12/27/2007, 05:54 PM

well I hope it works out for you

tmz · #12 12/27/2007, 08:07 PM

A caution on peppermint shrimp(Lysmata wurdemanni). These are your regular sought after peppermints noted for aiptasia consumption. They too will eat other polyps. I've seen them rip off whole zoanthus polyps an d consume them. Guess this comes under the heading of nothing is perfect.

jimmer · #13 12/27/2007, 09:52 PM

i never knew that about the shrimp maybe ill have to add a shrimp killing fish after all are gone