Aiptasia getting rid?

[drillsar]

I tried Everything I can think of now I want to try peppermint shrimps

I have a 29 gal tank so I want to know how many I should get?

I have a couple of aiptasia that always seems to come back.

[dublo8]

It's hit or miss with the peppermint's. sometimes they will eat them, sometimes they won't. 1 would be suitable in your size tank. I found that putting a little of that rock putty that you use to aquascape over the top of them works well and they dont return. The problem with pulling/scraping them off sometimes a peice of them will float around the tank and make new aptaisia's. Peppermint's will also leave remnants of them so they are not always the best answer for them. however my peppermint was one of the best additions to my tank. I only had one aptaisia in my tank. pulled it off with tweezers and ended up with 10. good luck.

[tspors]

If you only have a few, buy a syringe from the phamacy. Mix a 50/50 solution of water and draino/ Inject .5 ml into the root. Never to be seen again.

[Jstdv8]

How to kill aiptasia with pickling lime or kalkwasser mix

1.) Mix 1 tablespoon and 1/2 teaspoon of Mrs. wages pickling lime with 1 1/2 Teaspoons of water to make a nice paste. The paste should not be running, but it also must be thin enough to get injected through the syringe.
2.) Turn off power heads
3.) Apply a layer of the paste to the oral disc of the aiptasia. Sometimes you can get them to think its food by teasing their tentacles a little and then injecting the paste onto the oral disc. If they suck back into their hole right away just cover the hole with the paste.
4.) wait 45 minutes to an hour
5.) suck out the paste and the aiptasia with a turkey baster and dispose of them.

If you don't get them out with the baster repeat the steps above until you do. Out of the hundreds I killed only 2 little ones needed to be pasted twice.

I bought 100 lbs. worth of live rock from a fellow reefer who was tearing down her tank. The rock was covered with aiptasia (estimating over 300). Some of the rocks also had some corals on them (mushrooms, green star polyps and Kenya trees)
I put the rock on a 55 gallon tank that I used as a holding area while I treated the rock before putting it into my display tank.
I mixed up a small batch of the lime paste and started injecting the aiptasia with the method used above.
I recommend doing only a few at a time as the paste can cause a PH spike in your tank if you do too much. Keep in mind Pickling lime and kalkwasser are similar products that are used for correcting alkalinity and calcium problems and can be used safely if in small doses.
Be sure to cover the whole face of the aiptasia with the paste to ensure that it cannot release its seed into the tank and make more aiptasia later. You also must get it out of the hole as even a small piece of aiptasia can grow into a whole one over time. Do it right the first time.

Other methods that work include Peppermint shrimp, Copper banded butterfly, joe's juice, aiptasia-x, vinegar, boiling water or just leaving the rock out in the open air for a couple of days(killing everything on it.)

Peppermint shrimp work well as long as they don't have a different food source they like better. It is also very important to get the correct shrimp as there is an imposter shrimp that doesn't feed on aiptasia that looks very similar. When you are buying the shrimp ask for L. wurdemanni. Do Not accept the shrimp if it is a L. californica.
Peppermints will also not attack a large aiptasia so these will have to be removed in another way. There is also no guarantee that the aiptasia will not release its seed into the water which they tend to do when in danger. This will cause more to pop up later.

The Copper banded butterfly's require an established tank to safely house one (preferably 6 months or longer). Some for whatever reason don't prefer aiptasia though (the upside here is that these ones are reef safe)
If you choose this method you risk the fish devouring other corals in your tank that you wanted to keep once it has eaten the aiptasia. And again, there is no guarantee that they won't release their seed into the water when attacked.

Aiptasia X is similar to the paste that I described above and it comes in a nifty little syringe with a straight and an angled head for getting at aiptasia in hard to reach places.
The downside here is the cost. At 20 dollars a tube it gets pretty costly, especially if you have a lot of aiptasia to treat. A jar of Mrs. Wages pickling lime costs about $4 at Wal-mart and you will have a lifetime supply.

Boiling water, vinegar and Joe's juice all have been known to work but as with most methods are very hit and miss. While one person says they had great success the next may say it didn't work at all.

Best of luck to you and good hunting!

[kimack@tampabay]

Can anyone tell me if the Berghia Nudibranch is as successful as advertized?
the shipping on those little guys is very pricey. Anyone have a good source if indeed it is as effective as shown on the sites that promote them.

[Jstdv8]

Yes, they are very effective. The downsides are price and once they finish off your aptasia they will starve to death because all they eat is aiptasia.

[pirataj]

The Berg are the best against aiptasia.

Have you tried with syringe and vinegar?

[tspors]

2004 Post:
OK, here is my sure fire way, 100% success rate, never to return again method.

Use a saturated solution of Sodium Hydroxide (Drain Away, Draino, whatever you like to call it) and water. Using a syringe, squirt about 0.5 mL into the mouth of each aiptasia. This will kill even the stubborn foot tissue.

I initially used kalk paste like pies, by found that the success rate wasn't that great. Sodium Hydroxide is much more soluble than Calcium Hydroxide, and is more alkaline, completely nuking the aiptasia.

Again don't dose too much at one time. It is not harmful to your reef, unless you directly squirt it onto corals. Just a warning that Sodium Hydroxide will cause sever chemical burns if handled, you can tell if you have it on your hands 'cause they will feel "soapy" and slippery. If you feel your hands becoming slippery, wash with a LOT of cold water. Preferably wear gloves when handling.

As dangerous as the chemical sounds, it is really quite safe for your reef.

Draino is surprisingly pure sodium hydroxide, and is really no more dangerous to your tank than calcium hydroxide (kalk). Any tank with a reasonable alkalinity (greater than 2.6) should have no problems adding it. The hydroxide ion reacts relativly quickly with dissolved carbon dioxide producing, there are also other mechanisms for the neutralisation of the free hydroxide. Which reaction is most significant is determined by the pH.

2(OH)- + 2CO2 ---> H20 + 2(CO3)2-

The only difference between this and the kalk method is the spectator ion (Ca2+ as opposed to Na+).
Kalk will do the same thing to your hand as sodium hydroxide, at a much much slower rate.

If anything this method is easier on the fish, I had problems with fish eating, or trying to eat the white kalk paste. I for one wouldn't like a mouth full of kalk. The sodium hydroxide method is much safer in that it is completely soluble, such that any solution which doesn't make it into the aiptasia, is quikly netralised by surrounding water by the above reaction, and no solid remains to be eaten by fish.

[AaronM]

Another method which works is injecting lemon juice...and ph down into the aiptasia. I injected about .5 ml into the anemone. It didn't seem to work at first. I really expected the anemone to immediately melt. It receded for a few hrs, then returned seemingly unaffected. Much to my surprise the next day it was completely gone. Its been 2 weeks. Its history.

Ph down... acid.

Inject fast...when i injected slow...the flow swept the acid away.

Btw b4 acid i tried tweezers and covering it with sand...didn't work.

GL.

[muttley000]

I had about a dozen aiptasia in my 29, I have added 2 pepermints (+1 on making sure you get the right one) and I haven't seen one since the second night I had them. Just nuked the 2 in my sump yesterday, we'll see what I look like in a week or so, that's how long it took using the kalk past method for them to come back.

[Jstdv8]

If you do the kalk paste method the real key is the turkey baster. You must suck out the bad guy, and it's a good idea to suck out the remaining paste too so t doesnt get on anything you don't want dead.
If yuo don't get the aiptasia out with the baster repeat.

[L8ndeb]

It's fun and effective:

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh....php?t=1808040

[OodleyBoodely]

I bought bergia for my aipt problem. I could only afford 3 and planned to breed them until I had a couple egg masses hatch and raised to viable size to add to the tank. The bergia are surprisingly hardy and easy to raise. The problems I encountered was in feeding them. To raise them, you have to protect the eggs from predation...and everything eats them, so, the breeders and eggs have to be kept seperate from any liverock that may contain pods and bristleworms, and, any fish that pick at rock, wrasses, manderins, ect. So, raising them in 1/2 gal jars works fine, no aeration or filtering needed, just change water every day to two days. But, picking aiptasia off lr to feed the bergia is difficult and time consuming. I used tweezers and had to sneak up on the aiptasia and try to get a whole aiptasia. Mostly fed aiptasia tentacles and pieces...the aiptasia are fast and hard to catch! I actually bought a 6lb aiptasia covered rock at premium lfs prices as a farm to feed my bergia colony! So, I did manage to raise one batch of bergia egg spirals to 1/4 inch juveniles that I released into my main system. As soon as I had some to add to the main tank, I decided I'd had enough of picking aiptasia off rock, so, the adults and several of the largest juvies went into my aiptasia farm to clear that rock. They are just about done with the aiptasia farm and I will soon pick the adults out of that tank and put them into the main tank where I am still seeing a few aiptasias. These guys really do work, but, unless you have unlimited resources, your best bet is to raise some batches of eggs seperately from your main tank to ensure that you get enough viable bergia to survive your main tank long enough to eradicate the aiptasia.

[Tylt33]

I just bought a boatload of peppermint shrimp from Reefs2Go; they are buy one get one free, and dumped them into my tank. Aiptasia problem solved.

[cbatkinson]

why not just use aiptasia X? Just inject the center with aiptasia X and poof....gone. I think I used it one time...

[nemosworld]

I'm going with a copperband butterfly.