How to control Aptaisa

b_james · #1 01-25-2007, 06:19 PM

I have noticed an increase of brown, long tentical anemones possibly aptaisa. A few of these are already about 2-3" diameter. Can anyone recommend a natural predator to these?

Raf · #2 01-25-2007, 06:41 PM

Is this in a reef tank? If not, our dogface puffer eats them as does our batfish.

DiscusZ · #3 01-25-2007, 06:53 PM

I had a lot of them in my 77g reef and I bought a bunch of pepermint shrimp and I do not have a single one left and I have done a lot of different things (kalk paste, boiled water, boiled water and vinegar, joes juice etc nothing worked,

Jim

Rippin · #4 01-25-2007, 07:17 PM

I second the Peppermint shrimp route. Had a few on new corals that I bought and within an evening they were all gone! The Peppermint shrimp just gobbled them up.

andsoitgoes · #5 01-25-2007, 07:24 PM

I've had great luck with joes juice in my nano, and peppermint shrimp in my 44g. How many do you have, and can you add some shrimpy inverts?

MikeP · #6 01-25-2007, 07:37 PM

Do some research on the peppermint shrimp. I recently came across a thread at Reef Central talking about peppermints going after corals and mushrooms. I have a peppermint in my LR holding tank (a tank I set up just to hold LR until my display is ready) and he hasn't eaten hardly any. You could try a copperband butterfly, I have read that they are typically reef safe and if he did start to nip at corals at least he could be removed from the tank easier than some peppermints. I don't have a lot of experiance with aiptasia this is just what I have read and what I saw with the one peppermint I bought. In the case of my peppermint maybe he just has to get around to the aiptasia...it is a 55g tank he's in.

Anyway HTH

b_james · #7 01-25-2007, 10:06 PM

I already tried the butterfly, unfortunatly he only lasted about 4 days, as he was constantly harrased by my Scopa and Sailfin. I like the peppermint idea.

I havent counted but in one area I have a colony of about a dozen some are 2" in diameter. They are popping up everywhere. I would like to try Joes Juice, but with the depth of the tank and due to the oversizes glass center brace, I wouldnt be able to reach some of them.

mark · #8 01-25-2007, 11:11 PM

Sound like you got some biggins.

Had some myself that I didn't keep on and they got out of control. I tried vinager and it worked but was hard as you needed to inject diectly into the animal. More often it would retract so wouldn't work.

Tried the kalk paste and I'm totally converted. Turn of the pumps, using a large bore syringe just drip it over them. And what works better was the juice that I had from thawing mysis, I stirred that into the paste. The little buggers would reach out to get it.

Since unable to feed them all with kalk, got a couple of Peppermint and they finished the rest.

DiscusZ · #9 01-29-2007, 01:48 PM

The peppermint you "think" you have may not be a true peppermint shrimp// I have heard of this happening as well.. there is a shrimp that looks similar to a peppermint but is not a true peppermint.

mark · #10 01-29-2007, 02:31 PM

The other shrimp I think you're referring to is the L. rathbunae. I'm positive that what I ended up getting locally (first placed in my sump so was able to clearly view).

Main differance is the tail is darker and the rostrum is longer.

Though not what is considered the "true" peppermint, lots of articles indicated there was a chance that they would still go after aiptasia so placed in display. My experience was positive.