Anemonia Majano eradication

[Gary S]

My tank has quite a bit of the devil Anemonia majano. I have a small Copperband that eats aptaisia but not Anemonia majano. There are peppermint shrimps in there too, and they don't touch it either. I tried Kalk injections and ended up with more of the stuff. It caused it to split. I tried hot water and this seemed to work at the time, but the next week it was all back. I have heard of using an Orbiculate Bat fish. They eat anemones but also eat LPS corals. Does anybody out there have experience with this? Do they eat SPS corals? Anybody have more ideas or experience on how to get rid of the stuff?

:confused:

[Laura D]

I have been having pretty good luck lately using vinegar injections.

I use a small syringe with the pointy plastic tip that comes in salifert Calcium test kits to puncture the anemone and squirt the vinegar inside the mojano. Seems to work pretty well if you can get the vinegar inside them.

I have also had poor luck using kalk to kill them.

[Gary S]

Hey thanks for the idea. I tried the Kalk again last night and the Majano look fine again this morning. How much vinegar is safe to put into your tank at one time?

[kennerd]

I did the kalk paste on three with excellent results. When you do it, just make sure to jamb the syringe in quick and deep, so that it actually gets inside the little bugger. Mine actually turned into a ball of snot an detatched in about 2 minutes: flushed & gone!

Just squirting them doesn't seem to work. Then again, mine were about 1" across and had large mouths.

[Laura D]

Originally posted by Gary S
Hey thanks for the idea. I tried the Kalk again last night and the Majano look fine again this morning. How much vinegar is safe to put into your tank at one time?

I don't know how much is safe to put in at one time. I have been using 5 ml about every 3rd day or so and have seen absolutly no ill effects. This is in a system that has about 250 total gallon of water.

[Dragonlady]

A bicolor angelfish might eat the Anemonia majano, but it might also eat Pseudocorynactis,small featherdusters, certain sponges, Halimeda and LPS too.

[capman]

Regarding safety of vinegar:

I've been really impressed by the effectiveness of vinegar injections for Aiptasia control (and I'm about to embark on a major Anemonia eradication campaign...I hope I'll find that the vinegar will work as well on those as on Aiptasia).

I think there are two main things you need to pay attention to when using vinegar in your tank in this way:

(1) don't use so much at a time that you cause a big pH drop. Check your pH before you start injecting and after a bit of injecting to see what is happening.

(2) make sure you are not messing up your tank's alkalinity by this acid addition.

Otherwise, I think white vinegar is perfectly harmless in a reef tank, and in fact, some folks (me included) are using vinegar to enhance the effectiveness of our limewater (as suggested by Craig Bingman a few years ago in an Aquarium Frontiers article). Vinegar is simply dilute acetic acid, which dissociates in water to form hydrogen ions (which is why this is an acid) and acetate ions. Acetate ions are short carbon chains that many bacteria can use as an energy source, and these acetate ions are rapidly metabolized by bacteria and converted into carbon dioxide and water. So, aside from the possible short term effects on pH, it seems to me that vinegar in moderation should be perfectly harmless, and there should be no harmful residue that would build up in the tank.

Bill

[JPMagyar]

I have had 100% success with 0.2 ml of Muratic acid (semidilute Sulfuric acid found at most hardware stores) injected directly into the Majano with a syringe.


HTH

Joe

[Newts]

"I have heard of using an Orbiculate Bat fish." Bat fish get very large, like 18". A 135g tank is not big enough.

[dieselfish]

I got rid of one along with a few aiptasia by superglueing them in the rock. You can't eat, you die.

[capman]

"I have had 100% success with 0.2 ml of Muratic acid (semidilute Sulfuric acid found at most hardware stores) injected directly into the Majano with a syringe."

Isn't muriatic acid hydrochloric acid?

In any event, whether hydrochloric or sulfuric acid, I would think that acetic acid (e.g. vinegar) would be a good deal safer for your reef system in terms of potential for disrupting your water chemistry. I would think that hydrochloric acid, for example, will be increasing your chloride ion concentration above what is normal for seawater.

[SaltwaterSensei]

in my last tank I had a great deal of trouble with these manjano's.... what did the trick for me was kalk PASTE and actual chalky paste. Not an injection but I would smear it over the whole colony and with in a few minutes they turned into a ball of snot and I siphoned them out....