Torching Aiptasia

[nanmer]

Would burning the remains, after manual removal, with a blow torch be an effective way of removing aiptasia? Hubby is a plumber and has a few different types of torches. Would burning the little pests cause any kind of spike in nitrates, amonia etc.?

[naesco]

Originally Posted by nanmer

Would burning the remains, after manual removal, with a blow torch be an effective way of removing aiptasia? Hubby is a plumber and has a few different types of torches. Would burning the little pests cause any kind of spike in nitrates, amonia etc.?

What don't you just buy a peppermint shrimp or do you have fish that eat them

[bowkry]

torch works great, also on mushrooms

[nanmer]

I have soooo many (bought live rock for a good price) that a peppermint shrimp could not keep up. I planned on getting rid of most of them and then buying a shrimp to maintain.

Originally Posted by naesco

What don't you just buy a peppermint shrimp or do you have fish that eat them

[mark]

pickup up a micro torch that use butane, seems to work.

As for shrimp, they do work also and would love to have them, but can't seem to keep them any longer than a couple of months before they go MIA (both cleaner and peppermint).

[Treebeard]

Didn't work for me. It was a total waste if time.

Originally Posted by bowkry

torch works great, also on mushrooms

[naesco]

Originally Posted by nanmer

I have soooo many (bought live rock for a good price) that a peppermint shrimp could not keep up. I planned on getting rid of most of them and then buying a shrimp to maintain.

You will be surprised at how quickly the shrimp eat the stuff. If you are worried buy to but remember to acclimate them for two hours.

The problem with the torch is you will also kill the good stuff near the aptasia and the good stuff inside the rock itself.
You will also leave a residue from the blowtorch gases on the rock.

[Eyford01]

I also had aptasia and tried 2 peppermint shrimp, ate all my pods and stomatella and left the nems untouched, I tried torching a few but didn't like the residue, but being cheap and not wanting to pay for joes juice I tried boiling water applied with a turkey baster although a needle might work better, a couple took more than one application but as long as they aren't close to anything else you might harm it could work, at least it did for me

[Key Equine]

I had a few that my peppermint shrimp didn't eat, so I took a lighter to them until they were good and melted, then rinsed and brushed away the remnants with a toothbrush. When I put the rocks back in the tank, my peppermint shrimp went right to where I had burned the aiptasia and picked out whatever was left in the hole. It was very cool and worked like a charm. Never saw another sign of them...

[Myka]

I'm a huge fan of blow torches. Good for all sorts of pest killing! Including algae, majanos, aiptasia! If a blow torch doesn't work, then you didn't do a good job of it. You gotta roast them little buggers. You will cause a certain amount of ammonia spike, but if you only do one rock at a time in a decent sized tank it should be able to handle it. Personally though, I usually just setup a little Rubbermaid with powerhead and heater and "cook" the blow torched rocks for a few weeks afterward.