GRRRRR aptasia

[Moe_K]

A racoon butterfly will devour them. Problem is, the fish will devour every other polyp in the tank and clams too.

 

[JeremyAN7]

Same with Kleins butterfly.. avoid if you have any other anemone or polyp.

 

[crzy4reefs]

like i said the only thing in my tank i would worry about are my zoa's. i don't have an anemone or clams in the tank.

 

[crzy4reefs]

I recently have been battling the aiptasia problem. My newly trained CBB is mowing down all the aiptasia. I think i had between 300 and 500 copies of the pest in my tank, and am now down to less than half. So far the CBB has not touched ANY of the 7 kinds of Zoes or anything else. He looked for a minute at the condilactus and a minute at the soft tree but then moved on...

exactly how did you train it?

 

[JeremyAN7]

At first it wasnt going for the aiptasia.. There is a thread on here somewhere about what I did..

Summary: Put something tasty in the tank that the CBB will eat (in my case garlick covered brine shrimp. 2 days of that.
Then start putting the same food in the tank with a turkey baster type device. Get the CBB comfortable with eating near it. Then eventuall FROM it.
Then only feed CBB right in front of Aiptasia. Then after like the 5th day. Feed the shrimp to the aiptasia in front of CBB's nose. He'll get it .. Took about a week total.. Now my aiptasia are disappearing.

 

[crzy4reefs]

neat, thanks jeremy,

my husband wants to try two of the aptasia eating nudibranches first though. we've got plenty of aptasia for them to eat.

 

[OceanGuy]

Aiptasia control

I had a real aiptasia problem in my 220 gallon tank at school. I put in a Copperband butterfly and within 2 weeks it had eaten everything in the tank.
I bought it from Aquarium Gallery in Hudson NH and they have a few there for around $35. That will take care of your problem. The ones that they have are picking at things and eating well too.

THey are having a 20% off sale this weekend. I was there today and bought a few things.

I have also used boiling water to get rid of them, but that is tedious if you have a lot.

Ok for months i've been battling this horriable hitch hicker, i've tried joe's juice i've done a kalk paste thing and tried killing them that way. i've tried pep shrimp (they've disappeard). it seems more i trie to kill these things the more they multiply, it's really starting to get agrivating.

any other suggestions. i was thinking of getting a copper band butterfly to eat the stuff then sell him (my tank is only a 45 soon to up grade to a 210 but don't know when that'll happen) my concern with him is my zoa's. i was thinking those aptasia eating nudi branches but i have bulkheads that they might get sucked into. Any help is appreicated.

 

[crzy4reefs]

Hi Tom,

I was talking to lourdes (beacon) and she has a copper band in that's eating frozen going to see if it will eat aptasia. But seems like my husband is really leaning to the nudi branches. Only because the copper band eats feather duster's and he doesn't want that happening.

 

[JeremyAN7]

that is true about the feather dusters.. i had about 3 little pink ones in my sand and they were "the first to go" But. on the positive side, my CBB has also eaten just about all the bristle worms too! Anytime they show their hairy little bodies durign day time... "SNAP" they are gone!

 

[alsie1]

injecting with lemon juice

Was overloaded and started injecting with a syringe shooting into the base with lemon juice - it works but will take time to complete it. Am getting a few peppermint shrimp to see if I can eliminate completely. Have one and have never seen him eating any. I was stupid thinking a few really didn't matter and all of a sudden they were taking over.

 

[crzy4reefs]

well the thing here is we had a few, got them with joe's juice then a month later they were everywhere, so i'm hoping the nudi branches will take care of the job. i've giving up injecting them seems the more i do the more they multiply.

 

[BrianMac]

I have an aptasia that I'm trying to get rid of. I added a pair of peppermint shrimp the other day and haven't seen them since.

I didn't think about this at the time. But now I'm wondering can you add Peppermint shrimp to a tank that already has cleaner shrimp?

 

[Gina McReeferson]

That should be fine. We have cleaners, peppermints, fire shrimp, and a coral banded. None of them seem to care much about each other at all. The peppermints seem to hide quite a bit in the rocks which may be why you haven't seen them. They come out a lot at night when the lights are out.

-Gina

 

[BrianMac]

That should be fine. We have cleaners, peppermints, fire shrimp, and a coral banded. None of them seem to care much about each other at all. The peppermints seem to hide quite a bit in the rocks which may be why you haven't seen them. They come out a lot at night when the lights are out.

-Gina

Thanks Gina,

Hopefully the shrimp are still alive and they enjoy the aptasia.

I really don't care for fish that hide. I bought a Molly Miller a couple of weeks ago and haven't seen it since it went into the tank.

 

[crzy4reefs]

Yeah check at night time for them. But the only shrimp you don't want to mix with others is the coral banded shrimp and of course mantis shrimp.

 

[Gina McReeferson]

You're welcome, Mike.

Shanna, we've heard that quite a bit about the coral bandeds, people having trouble with them with their other shrimp, and sometimes fish. Maybe we've just been lucky with ours, he has never bothered anything. We actually bought him before we even heard anything of the sort, we probably wouldn't have otherwise, but he is nothing but a good citizen in our tank....luckily.

-Gina