Aiptasia

[smeagol]

Hi there.
I am completely new to this site and came on looking for some advice and help on the nuisance Aptasia.
Before i purchased my second hand marine tank i did many many hours of research on the subject. I looked forward to maintaining the tank and spending time watching and monitoring my system.
My tank is 36 inches in length and 24 inches deep but because it has its own stand it is very tall making it extremely hard to access. The tank contains enough live rock to come about 2 inches from the top of the water.
My fish include 1 yellow tang, 1 blue throat trigger, 1 skunk clown, 1 maroon clown, 1 scooter blenny and 1 aiptasia eating file fish (this is what i purchased it as but on researcg it has many names)
Also contains 1 very large Anenome, many mushroom corals, 2 cleaner shrimps, red and blue legged hermit crabs, 1 bristle starfish, 1 feather duster and about 500 Aiptasia
The Aiptasia were not present when i purchased the tank (tank had been set up and running for around 1 year before i purchased it) The only things i have added to the tank in the last 6 months are the yellow tang, blenny and the filefish.
When i first noticed the Aiptasia i decided to try a copperband (knowing full well they were difficult to keep !) but unfortunately this died about 2 weeks after purchase. Feeling completely awful over this death i decided to try Joes Juice which was amazing apart from the fact that i could only get the first few rocks in the tank.
After talking to my local fish shop (who are very good) i purchased the Aiptasia eating filefish. mmmm i think you could just call a filefish as it hasnot touched one Aiptasia in weeks.
The fish shop adv trying another filefish which involved catching the old one, but hes too clever for that. I have spent hours trying to catch him but the moment i lift up my lights he hides and at night he sleeps under the rocks.
Unfortunately i can see no way round this apart from stripping the tank to nothing and starting again. Is there anyone out there that can offer me a glimmer of hope.

 

[SkiFletch]

Sure, Aiptasia are not the end of the world at all, there are some pretty good predators of them. If you have a LOT of them as you say, I'd consider getting 3 peppermint shrimp. Sometimes peppermints dont eat aiptasia but usually they do. If peppermints fail, Berghia Nudibranch's are the king aiptasia eaters. Tiny little nudibranchs that eat ONLY aiptasia. Great little critters.

As an aside, I'd try and get that tang out cause longterm a 45 or 65g tank as you've described is too small for species. Generaly a 4' 75g tank is the minimum required for a yellow tang, prefferrably a 4' 90g tank.

Good luck with the aips

 

[maidenfan]

the only thing i can think of is peppermint shrimps i have one which keeps my aptasia at bay

 

[Miss Wiggle]

yeah we were struggling with aiptasia and got some peppermint shrimps which seem to have done the job. we got some joe's juice as well and blasted the 3/4 biggest one's cos they were the same size as the shrimp, didn't think they'd eat them! within a few weeks they'd polished off all the babies, not seen any since. 2 things to be careful of though, we we're worried about the joe's juice affecting the ph of the tank, so got ourselves ready for a water change, blasted one aiptasia and did the water change straight away, then a few days later did the same again with another water change and so on until we'd got all the big ones. secondly if there's other food in the tank for the peppermint shrimp they'll eat that instead of the aiptasia so you have to be very careful not to overfeed. This could be why your filefish isn't eating them. cut back to feeding every other day or even every third day.

i'd say you don't have to completely strip the tank down, but maybe a little to get at all the big one's, blast them with joes juice a few at a time then do a water change. then reduce your feeding, if the other one's don't start to dissapear get some peppermint shrimp on the go

good luck

 

[sothoth]

My wife and I have successfully injected them with hot saturated salt water. Joe's juice also works nicely. The principle of this method is that you get a needle and syringe with a solution that's toxic to the anemones but safe for your fish, poke the anemone near the base and fill it with solution. It dies.

DO NOT try this on anemones that are partially buried in crevices where you won't be able to get to their base. They're pretty fast at retracting when you approach them, so be quick. If you miss or don't kill them, they send out spores and you'll get TONS of little ones.

Or take the live rock out that has the anemones on it and scrape them off outside (not in the water) by breaking off the piece of live rock with the anemone attached. Rinse off the rock before you return it to the tank so you don't bring anemone pieces back into the tank that can grow into lots of new anemones.

Or get a few (3) berghia nudibranchs. That's our favorite method. They only eat these anemones and so they're very effective. It takes a little while but they'll grow nice and fat off your glass anemones. Yum! Try berghia.net.

 

[MoonTang]

The only problem with him getting some peppermint shrimps is that he has a blue throat trigger which may eat them.

Just use sothoth's method and keep trying with Joe's juice.