Aptasia muncher that is reef safe
 

Could someone name a few fish that will consumer aptasia yet is safe to house with different corals. I don't like manual extermination mehtods of these pests.

CBB and Pepermint shrimp maybe?

CBB you have to be carful some will munch on tube worms and zoos

Is this through your experience? How are they on SPS?

raccoons ...are great but same deal as the cbb.......had one....completely cleaned up the aptasia

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My old CBB never ate SPS but did munch on my feather dusters. It also killed my clam. It would also pick at my LPS if the LPS was injured, but never touched the heathy polyps for some reason. I'd go with peppermint shrimp to control aptasia.

apt
 

Up to date, I've placed 4 peppermint shrimps in the tank and not once have I seen them again. Aiptasia on the other hand are multiplying.

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Well you could try a CBB, perhaps in a big enough tank the damage caused by it would be minimal.

with the CBB I heard it's hit and miss, they don't all eat Aiptasia. If only it was a sure thing with the CBB then I wouldn't mind risking a few zoos/feathers.

There are some nudibranches out there that eat Aiptasia as well. Of course I would assume they starve to death once they finish them off..

There are two types of peppermint shrimp and only one type that eats aptasia, that being said, I've tried both and they didn't eat the aptasia. You could try going very light on the feedings for the fish and tank for a few days and let the shrimp get hungry. They may not be eating the aptasia because they may have lots of stuff to eat already.

Doug

I've given up on them shrimps, they don't do didley for me. I don't even think they exist in my systems anymore. Useless shrimps in my opinion. There must be other fish.

By the way, there's only one type of peppermint, the other you're thinking about is probably the camel shrimp.

Lysmata rathbunae and Lysmata californica are similar to Lysmata wurdemanni and alleged to be not as likely to consume Aiptasia.

Doug

There "might" only be one type of peppermint but I've read that there are some that eat aiptasia and some that don't , it depends where they come from. I'll see if I can find the info and forward it.

Dave

i had a bad aptasia problem and wanted to deal with it using biological rather than chemical control

so i bought peppermint shrimp from an lfs with a very good reputation but these shrimp did the diddly squat

the guy who said there are two kinds is right, californian and caribbean
carribean are the good ones, species name starts with a "w"

got a different less reputable lfs to pull the packing list on their peppermints and all my aptasia except the one big mother colony were gone in less than two weeks

if i remember right there was an issue with harvesting caribbean shrimp in different seasons so some places may just sell californian as caribbean

also once you've seen peppermints next to camels there is no comparison

If you want to give the CBB a try Will, there's some just in at Gold right now. :smile: (3 left I think.)

thanks Gar, I'll check em out.