Star polyps and Aiptasia on the same rock.

[Mike C.]

Hello all,
I added a rock to my tank the other day because it had some cool looking polyps on it and today when I glanced in I saw an aip sticking its tentacles out of a hole in the rock. I looked real closely and saw at least one more on the rock in a different location. I have battled aiptasia before and I'm not giving these dudes a chance to get a foothold in my tank. So, is there anyway to remove the polyps from this rock so that they'll take up residence on another? Should I just pull the rock out of the tank and use a hammer and chisel to cut the rock apart to remove the aips? Or, should I just mix up a strong batch of kalk, dose the aips, and hope for the best? Lemme know what you think I can do to keep those buggers from spreading.

Thanx,
Mike

[keckles]

seems like attempting to remove star polyps or chiseling the rock is going to be a lot harder than just hitting them with some kalk or joes juice? have you had success using kalk in your past experiences?

[Mike C.]

I have used kalk, mixed to the consistency of cement, in the past to deal with aiptasia with mixed results. If you only have one or two it will probably work, but I once had an outbreak where I had at least a dozen in the tank where kalk didn't solve the problem. I ended up putting a couple of peppermint shrimp in to get rid of those dudes. Funny thing is, I never saw the shrimp after I put them in the tank but my aips vanished completely. Who knows, maybe they're still in there and they'll find the new ones. Anyway, it looks like I'll mix up some more kalk. I have a real hypodermic needle now to inject the stuff directly into the critter so hopefully I can get rid of them.

Mike

[Caryliss]

If you can get Joe's Juice use that. If you get it on the star polyps it will cause some temporary damage to them but they will recover in a week or two. I was actually hoping Joe's Juice would kill star polyps too--they are taking over several rocks--but no such luck!

[dhoch]

I have had an apstasia problem in my refugium for a while, since I am now using it to put some frags in for attaching in low flow I knew I would have to do something about it.

I had one apstasia in there that was going on 2" in length.

Last night brought home a single peperminet from the LFS, in less than an hour the big apstasia (bigger than the shrimp) was gone.

Overnight I now no longer see apstasia at all in the refugium.

You go pepi!

Dave

[Scuba_Dave]

I have pepps in both tanks, no aptasia. I do have some in my fuge, and saw a lrge one appear in my main tank. It dissapeared after a week. GSP can be a pain also. I boiled 3 large rocks to get rid of it. I didn't want it taking over the tank. GSP will kill (almost?) everything it come sin contact with. Check out the pic of someone's tank taken over by GSP!!

[Dingo Dog]

I had aiptasia. I added 5 small peppermint shrimp and now I have no more aiptasia. Add these shrimp and give then 3-4 days. They only come out at night so don't expect to watch them as they work, just appreciate that they will do the job on aiptasia.

[dsg7777]

will a pep shrimp get along with a cleaner shrimp? I just noticed 4 or 5 aipstasia and Id like to remove em naturally.

[Dingo Dog]

I have two cleaners and one fire shrimp. They are each approx. 4" from nose to tip of tail.

The peps don't seem to have started any trouble with of their neighbors. They are very nocturnal. I've been pleased with their success with the aiptasia. This morning I noticed a new aip just getting started. I'm not worried though because I feel confident the peps will find it and run it out of town.

[guitar_lord]

Get a peppermint shrimp... they will eat all of your aiptasia

happy hunting

[dsg7777]

will the pep shrimps eat my corals though? I have heard bad things about em.

[Dingo Dog]

I have brains, fungia, frog spawn, clam, shrooms, button polyps, feather duster, tri-color and colt coral. None have been affected thus far.

[dsg7777]

cool, thanks :)

[appellativo]

if you decide to try joes juice (as I have, successfully), make sure you turn off all pumps and circulation temporarily, then squirt a healthy dose on your aptasia (do as many aps as you can hit with one CC of joes juice; ive heard doing too much at once can screw with your ph), leave the pumps off for a few minutes so the aptasia can stew in it for a bit and really kill it dead. I killed two aptasia the size of a quarter if not larger (just the head, not the tentacles!) doing this. I hit it a few times without turning off the pump, and it kept coming back, then I got mad and turned off the pumps, dosed the crud out of it and it hasnt come back since! I do have pepps in my tank (at least three in my 120 with lps and soft corals, and one of the pepps is HUGE) with nary an incident of coral-harrassment going on. good luck!