I Have Old Tank Syndrome

[guidedbyechoes]

Long story short my tank was doing fine until I got some new frag and I spotted an aiptasia. I thought what harm can one little aiptasia do. It killed 10 coral, 2 fish and led to events that killed an urchin and possibly my cleaner shrimp. Now I have 3 corals left, enough aiptasia to feed a gang of nudibrauch for at least 2 years and enough hair algea to an adult hippo tang feed for most of its life. Some of the hair algae was even enough to wreck my most powerful and expensive pump last week.

So I'm looking at options and it seems my only options are to seriously upgrade to an ro unit( tap water didn't cause any hair algae for 6 months after I got my tank set up.) and a skimmer at the least. Also I will have to either tear down and "cook" my live rock and replace the sand. Or just replace the liverock and sand altogether.

With either option I dont really know what to do with my fish,inverts and corals in the meantime. Looking at the video that I took around christmas makes me sad just to think about it.

 

[crazyforcordoras]

Sea hare and berghia nudibranchs.


CC

 

[guidedbyechoes]

Sea hare and berghia nudibranchs.


CC

That takes care of one problem but only treats the symptoms of the other. Nudi's are hard to find round here, as well as reputable dealers.

 

[crazyforcordoras]

Try ordering them online.


CC

 

[Lady J]

You don't live too far from me (within 2 hours). A pet store in Appleton had some nudibranchs last week. When I want something in particular I ask the owner to order it for me when he is doing the weekly order because then I don't have to pay shipping. I'm sure one of your local pet stores could do the same for you. Aptasia X kills almost immediately but for every 10 you kill 20 seem to pop up somewhere else.

FWIW, I tore my reef down 2 months ago and have an RO/DI I no longer need although it needs the new membrane. I also have a Reef Octopus in sump skimmer and great return pump plus a lot of other stuff. Not trying to get pushy about your buying anything, please believe that. I don't know what type of system you have but a skimmer is a good idea. If you want to discuss this pm please.

 

[Donya]

Are these specific events in one of the journals anywhere? It sounds like a lot more went wrong than one Aiptasia. Aips thrive in nutrient-rich water and often bloom when the water quality goes off, so from limited information it sounds like they too could easily have been a symptom of something else in the environment.

Regarding Aiptasia control, peppermint shrimp are another biological alternative that is usually more locally available (and they don't starve if the Aips dissappear, unlike the nudis) but it's been my experience that you need several of them before they readily engage in Aip-killing behavior. My guess has been that this is why so many people complain of one or two "dud" shrimp that don't do their job, as they usually won't when single or as pairs. It has always taken me getting 4-5 of them together even in a nano before they start the behavior, but then it goes smoothly. Large tanks can require more. You also have to be patient - it's a slow process that can take a month or so before you see an obvious impact, and you have to be sparing with food to keep the peps hungry. Anyway, it's worked for me several times now with pretty horrific pest nem populations carpeting the rocks. I wouldn't go getting any biological solutions for the Aips though until the root of the problem is discovered, since both peps and nudis are sensitive enough that they would not fare well in an unstable environment.

EDIT: should say that of course there is more than one species of pep out there, but read an article or two a while back that demonstrated that whichever one(s) were most abundant in the trade were indeed aip-eaters. I don't recall if those articles confirmed them as Lysmata wurdemanni or not though (which is what they are typically sold as).

 

[guidedbyechoes]

Are these specific events in one of the journals anywhere? It sounds like a lot more went wrong than one Aiptasia. Aips thrive in nutrient-rich water and often bloom when the water quality goes off, so from limited information it sounds like they too could easily have been a symptom of something else in the environment.

Regarding Aiptasia control, peppermint shrimp are another biological alternative that is usually more locally available (and they don't starve if the Aips dissappear, unlike the nudis) but it's been my experience that you need several of them before they readily engage in Aip-killing behavior. My guess has been that this is why so many people complain of one or two "dud" shrimp that don't do their job, as they usually won't when single or as pairs. It has always taken me getting 4-5 of them together even in a nano before they start the behavior, but then it goes smoothly. Large tanks can require more. You also have to be patient - it's a slow process that can take a month or so before you see an obvious impact, and you have to be sparing with food to keep the peps hungry. Anyway, it's worked for me several times now with pretty horrific pest nem populations carpeting the rocks. I wouldn't go getting any biological solutions for the Aips though until the root of the problem is discovered, since both peps and nudis are sensitive enough that they would not fare well in an unstable environment.

EDIT: should say that of course there is more than one species of pep out there, but read an article or two a while back that demonstrated that whichever one(s) were most abundant in the trade were indeed aip-eaters. I don't recall if those articles confirmed them as Lysmata wurdemanni or not though (which is what they are typically sold as).

I'm afraid I havent made an entry in my journal since october of last year. It was at its peak at febuary of this year. Then one of my power heads started really acting up. It would work only in reverse or sometimes forwards and sometimes not at all. I think the lapse in filtration may had been what the aiptasia started to multiply. When they started to show up two of my fish started scratching on rocks and died a couple weeks after. I removed them as quickly as possible. Then about a month after that the cleaner shrimp looked like it was on its way out. I bought the urchin and after a month it died. I went on vacation for a week in may and I came back and a small tuft of hair algae was present and now its a lot more so.

The fish that died were a midas blenny and a royal gramma. I've had about 3 royal gramma at this point and every time I add one it dies and takes at least one other fish with it. The last two had what looked like ich. I do have 2 peppermint shrimp currently. When they wouldn't eat the aipatasia I just assumed they were mislabeled and I like them anyway so I kept them. They just try to avoid my melanurus wrasse as he's quite active.

I'm also opposed to the nudi's as most are pretty well known to release toxins if they die. That and I dont find those particular ones appealing visually.

 

[guidedbyechoes]

I think I have diagnosed my issue. I think I have water circulation issues causing the tank not to be filtered correctly. I have rearranged the rock for the water to flow more easily and am going to be picking up two stronger powerheads to increase flow. I picked a section of hair algae down to the rock and its in a high flow area and no algae has grown back. That wasnt the case two weeks ago. And unless my peppermint shrimp have started eating aptaisia there are none of those in that area either.

 

[Aqualife2u]

I think I have diagnosed my issue. I think I have water circulation issues causing the tank not to be filtered correctly. I have rearranged the rock for the water to flow more easily and am going to be picking up two stronger powerheads to increase flow. I picked a section of hair algae down to the rock and its in a high flow area and no algae has grown back. That wasnt the case two weeks ago. And unless my peppermint shrimp have started eating aptaisia there are none of those in that area either.

A peppermint shrimp would do the job. Well good luck on your tank