Aptasia Issue
 

One of my rocks has just started growing this little bugger. Does anyone have any tips or tricks to get rid of them?

peppermint shrimp in large numbers, or berghia nudibranches if its a very extreme case

ZAPPPPPPPPPPPER!!!!

Pepermints, FileFish, or Nuds

But I would go with the Zapppper!

dumb ? what's a zapper?

i've heard that peppermint shrimp could make it worse meaning that when they eat it they actually end up spreading it more or they won't eat it at all. I have a fire shrimp right now and he could care less.

Ive had good luck with injecting them with boiling hot vinegar. Just grab a couple of needles from the drug store. Microwave vinegar for a minute and sick it up in the needle. Stab and inject the wee buggers. If you have alot you may want to do this over a couple of days/weeks as you can swing you pH with enough vinegar.

The only issue I can see with adding something to eat the problem away is what happens if they eat you clean. So I inject... with a small bit of satisfaction every time I kill one.

Google Aptasia Zapper. It's exactly as it sounds haha.

aptasia
 

inject it with lemon juice,smother with kalkwasser.make sure you cover the whole foot as this is where the daughter cells are,and most importantly-do this during the day so it won't release the cells.if worse comes to worse and you get a large outbreak-pm me for berghia nudibranches

thanks, but what about the vinegar reacting with the tank after the injection?

thanks

I saw the zapper video! Is it for sale anywhere here in edmonton? Must get one! LOL!

Im assuming you mean the pH. The vinegar will drop the pH in your tank so this should be monitored and again only done in small amounts. The amount really depends on your water volume. If I recall correctly distilled white vinegar will have a pH of around 2.5. Other than that I have not noticed any side effects

Most are just done DIY, I have no clue where to buy one I'm sure if you looked you could find one I remember stumbling across a site that carried some kind but that was awhile ago.

I have never had the need, but I would defiantly DIY it, to have the added satisfaction of destruction!!!! :twised:

thanks for the info

depends on the amount of aiptaisa, and size of your tank.

small tank - Berghia, peppermints
larger tank - pepermints, copperbands, aiptasia filefish

Zapper - in extreme cases

fire shrimp won't touch aiptaisa

do you carry the zapper or copperbands?

I loved the satisfaction of melting the little buggers with my zapper, But that satisfaction disapeared when I realized that it was doing a better job of turning them into hundreds of tiny bits and speading them everywhere.

Certainly not in my case. 2 PPMs handle 180 lbs of LR for me. I've forgot what aiptasias look like since I got them.

Before I tried PPMS I tried manual removal, lemon juice and ap-X or whatever that chemical is called. Only the shrimp keep them from coming back in my case.

I agree with Peppermint shrimp,I had asked on here a few days back about Aiptaisia cause i suspected i was starting to grow it,after i identify'd it i went and got some Peppermint shrimp and by the next morning the Aiptaisia was all gone :D

thanks

I've found Berghia to be the most effective against aptasia. I bought a CBB and it didn't even touch a single aptasia. I still love him though. Bought 4 Berghia from Martin and my tank is aptasia free within a few days.

I did 3 Berghia and 2 peppermint shrimp and I have a FOREST of the stuff in my tank, pretty sure the Berghia are long gone I saw them once but then I never saw them again and didnt see a reduction in the aptasia infection.

aptasia
 

you normally won't see berghia-except at night.if you see any egg coils -that means they are reproducing.it also depends on how many berghia you put in the tank.it is recommended 6-8 berghia for a normal infestation per 100 gallons-more if you have a forest.it also matters how you place them in the tank.aptasia will eat berghia if they fall into the arms.i tell everyone after acclimation,to put them in a shot glass and sink it and let them crawl out on their own.it also takes 3 months for a egg to reach 5/8" adult.the berghia will also go after smaller aptasia first before eating the larger ones.i have put 20-30 medium aptasia in my breeding tanks at night,and they are gone by morning .(40-60 berghia)the berghia do more noticeable aptasia cleaning if they are kept in a group as they swarm the aptasia colonies. dispersing individual berghia around the tank will not only produce slower results-they can't mate and lay fertile eggs which will produce the swarms.once you start seeing the egg coils-in about 10 days they will hatch,in a month tiny berghia about 1/8" will start decimating the aptasia.it doesn't happen overnight and could take 3-6 months to get rid of the aptasia-but it will be all gone with nothing left for the aptasia to reproduce

its probably been about 3 months since I placed 3 of them in my tank, I turned off all the power heads and placed all 3 on a rock near an aptasia and alas nothing has resulted from them :( (40gal)

pretty much have a tank with a damsel and chromis and a forest of the stuff which im sure would be great for anyone wanting to bread berghia but I doubt they are still alive.

Ive always used Joes Juice with great success. Never seen aiptasia come back.

joes juice?

aptasia
 

joes juice is a thin kalkwasser paste-same as aptasia x only with some other chemicals in it and a huge mark up.i'ts possible that your peppermint shrimp ate the berghia.i've seen my fish(wrasses,trigger,parrot,and chromises put them in their mouth's and spit them out right away-but shrimp will eat anything

well i got a peppermint shrimp today and he's hiding right now. Hopefully it will come out tonight and start eating

If it's only one aiptasia I would inject with lemon juice and them epoxy over it with 2 part putty.