Aiptasia Issue

[Slimjim39027]

My 10g hex has been overgrown by aiptasia and I'm not sure what to do. I had my parents take care of it while I was off at college and them not knowing about aiptasia caused it to go unnoticed. I am thinking of starting a new 10g tank with its own 5g sump/refugium. Is it dumb to save literally ANY rock or sand even if it has a plethora of corals on it(along with some aiptasia)? Or will that just cause more aiptasia to spread in the new tank? I am hoping to have a par38 full spectrum and two par16 actinics hooked up to it as well for optimal lighting. I never had good luck with harder corals in my hex and am hoping for things to change with a more shallow tank like a 10g rectangular tank. Please provide me with any advise/options for this transfer because I am really hoping for this new transfer to eliminate any aiptasia while still possibly salvaging any corals/rock. Money is also a small issue for a broke college student like me. Thanks for any help!

 

[icedearth15324]

Have you tried getting a peppermint shrimp yet? They are hit or miss when it comes to eating aiptasia though. I've heard that if you don't feed the tank for a couple days, there is a chance they could get an appetite for them, this is a good option if you don't have any fish. Otherwise, you could try aiptasia-x, it definitely works, but if they are allowed to release their spores, then you're gonna get them back.

 

[mikenh77]

Oh, the age old war of reefers vs aiptasia. Sorry to hear about that. You can try to kill the aiptasia off by injecting them with lemon juice, joes juice, or smother them in superglue. Or like Karl said, peppermints can be great. Any way it will be be tedious if you have tons but don't give up!

I never tried it myself but I read some good things on using ROOTO lye for aiptasia on a whole tank treatment.
http://www.reefaddicts.com/content.php/130-I-won-t-lye-it-works

 

[Slimjim39027]

My fire shrimp loves him a good ol peppermint shrimp! He's eaten at least 3 and whenever I try to net the fire shrimp he goes right into hiding and is literally impossible to take out. Also I use aiptasia-x whenever I am in town and can only do so much with it. There are more heads in there than even aiptasia x can handle.

 

[mikenh77]

Sounds like a nightmare! Is there any way to frag some of your coral and treat all your rocks so you can use them later?

 

[Slimjim39027]

I have a beautiful branching frogspawn and a branching hammer that I want to save more than anything. I do know that some baby heads of aiptasia are attached though which could pose a possible issue? I'm not sure how big of a deal it is to have a couple of baby heads of aiptasia in the tank if I am going to be adding some cleaner shrimps in the new tank to treat any possible issues. Most of my other corals excluding my zoa rock should be easy to transfer though. How much rock do you think that I would need for a new setup and where can I get some cheap frags to begin filling a new tank?

 

[mikenh77]

If anything, just enough to keep the biological filtration going. If I were you, I would make surrreeee I didn't introduce any aiptasia to my new tank because then all that effort was really pointless, as you can tell aiptasia multiplies like crazy.

IME you can treat your old rocks with 1 day of bleach/H2O and 2 days of dechlorinator/H2O to kill everything remaining on them so you can reuse it.

It can be frustrating, aiptasia is the whole reason I gave up reefing 6 years ago. Just started up again a little over a year ago. Good luck!

 

[jm23]

The problem is that if you have aiptasia they are in your pipes, your overflow, your rocks, your sand, you frag plugs, your sump, etc. They are not easy to get rid of. I just restarted my tank and made my best attempt to get rid of them but with no luck. I sacrificed several zoas if I saw one, but they start out so small and hide everywhere that it was pointless. Start with some chemical means to knock their population down, like Aiptasia X or Kalk paste and get some peppermints to finish the job. GL.

 

[CoralN00b]

+1 on aptasia x. Be sure to go slow when aproaching tue aptasia and try to hit the mouth right when you inject it. Cover the aptasia right away because as you know they will release spores.

I went through two bottles to get rid of mine and it takes patience. I then added a peppermint shrimp but try to get the morrocan ones. They have a better success rate. I went from aptasia all the time to aptasia free for months on this.

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[Pufferpunk]

I move my CPB back & forth between 2 tanks to keep it gone. He even ate the HUGE ones!

 

[TangPolice]

Head over to UNDERWATER in Bensenville and tell Cisco your there to rent a FILEFISH ,he rents them out for Aptazia problem tanks and guys bring em back when there done with em . pretty cool idea

 

[CoralN00b]

Head over to UNDERWATER in Bensenville and tell Cisco your there to rent a FILEFISH ,he rents them out for Aptazia problem tanks and guys bring em back when there done with em . pretty cool idea

That is a good idea but keep an eye on him. There are all kinds of stories of them eating shrimps, Z&P's and acans in addition to your aptasia.

Once the problem is resolved get some livestock to help with prevention going forward.

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