Aipetasia has reached plague conditions

[asylumdown]

I'm about ready to throw in the towel with a 90 gallon because of aiptasia. An ounce of prevention would have solved this by being militantly aggressive when I first spotted them, but that was back before I knew what an aiptasia was, or how awful they could be.

I find the kalk paste doesn't ever kill the whole thing. It melts off their tentacles and part of their head, but they're back out a week later looking like nothing ever happened (and likely have released thousands of tiny clones in the process).

The only thing I've found that completely kills them to the point where they cannot regenerate is to take a very fine gauge syringe (the kind diabetics use), fill it with lemon juice or some other acid, then very gently spray a small cloud around the tentacles. The acid is strong enough to denature the proteins of their tentacles on contact, so they curl up against the body. This also stuns their "RETRACT!!!" reflex. After that, you've got about 20 seconds to get the syringe right up deep inside the body, either through the mouth, or by injecting straight through the side. After about 20 seconds (whether you inject them or not) they'll figure out they need to retract and disappear.

If you spray the tentacles first, you can even get tiny aiptasia this way.

However, if you've got as many of them as I do, you'll likely not ever bring them under complete control. When I move to my new tank, every piece of live rock in my current tank is going to be making a pit stop in a rubber maid full of bleach first.

The first aiptasia I see in my new tank will find it's host rock immediately removed, and then discover what the blue flame of a butane torch feels like.

[Megalodon]

Threadfin butterfly fish or Joe's Juice. Kalk paste never worked for me.

[Madreefer]

Originally Posted by Megalodon

Threadfin butterfly fish or Joe's Juice. Kalk paste never worked for me.

Somone please correct me if i'm wrong but is'nt Joes Juice actually kalk paste?

[globaldesigns]

Originally Posted by asylumdown

I'm about ready to throw in the towel with a 90 gallon because of aiptasia. An ounce of prevention would have solved this by being militantly aggressive when I first spotted them, but that was back before I knew what an aiptasia was, or how awful they could be.

I find the kalk paste doesn't ever kill the whole thing. It melts off their tentacles and part of their head, but they're back out a week later looking like nothing ever happened (and likely have released thousands of tiny clones in the process).

The only thing I've found that completely kills them to the point where they cannot regenerate is to take a very fine gauge syringe (the kind diabetics use), fill it with lemon juice or some other acid, then very gently spray a small cloud around the tentacles. The acid is strong enough to denature the proteins of their tentacles on contact, so they curl up against the body. This also stuns their "RETRACT!!!" reflex. After that, you've got about 20 seconds to get the syringe right up deep inside the body, either through the mouth, or by injecting straight through the side. After about 20 seconds (whether you inject them or not) they'll figure out they need to retract and disappear.

If you spray the tentacles first, you can even get tiny aiptasia this way.

However, if you've got as many of them as I do, you'll likely not ever bring them under complete control. When I move to my new tank, every piece of live rock in my current tank is going to be making a pit stop in a rubber maid full of bleach first.

The first aiptasia I see in my new tank will find it's host rock immediately removed, and then discover what the blue flame of a butane torch feels like.

Hmmm... Do you use a syringe and inject them with the KALK. Reason I ask, is that I use Kalk with a syringe. And they always die on the first attempt for me. Just wondering if you are just covering them in Kalk or actually injecting them.

[asylumdown]

the kalk keeps gumming up my syringes, so I have to use a gauge that's too big to pierce anything but the biggest aiptasia. You can only buy syringes from your local pharmacy so many times before the neighbours start to talk...

I might just be doing it wrong and not diluting it enough. I found the same problem with aiptasia X and joe's juice. How dilute of a solution can you make and still get effective results?