Aptasia question

Jw why aptasia is bad

I have probably 4 of them dispersed throughout the tank, two of them are big as far as aptasia goes....

Everyone says get rid of em... ok, i will...

Im just wondering why i need to do it ASAP. They seem harmless at this point. IM sure that im wrong. JW.

 

they can spread like wildfire all through your tank. theyre basically a "weed" , also possibly stinging other corals , and they are unsightly.

 

They are harmless....at THIS point. That is until they multiply into 100 on your rock and sting everything else you have.

 

To add to what has already been mentioned, aiptasia anemones can get large enough to eat small fish and inverts. I had a customer come into the lfs that I was working for at the time with a picture of one eating his seahorse. While some soft corals can tolerate their sting, not many, if any, LPS or SPS corals can.

 

thnx for furthering my knowledge also amcarrig. i didnt know theyd possibly eat fish and such also.

 

Since most people zap them before they reach full size, I don't think that many are aware of how big they can actually get if left unchecked and well fed. I was quite surprised myself! The seahorse wasn't a pygmy by any means. It was an adult h. erectus!

 

Wow. I had no idea that they could eat fishes
My tank is being over run by them. I've got over 100 of em and they're growing and stinging all my corals. I can't find peppermints anywhere in Trinidad. I resorted to the copperband butterfly hoping that he would eat them, he starved to death. My last resort is a four eye butterfly that is already eating aiptasias by the dealer.
JW, I suggest you get rid of the few that you currently have before you get to my level of being overrun by these pests.

 

used kalk...

All gone for now, although ive spotted a few sprouts. There is also one <.5" diameter one in the back of my rock stack that i cant really reach... Im gonna have to get creative. Also considering a copperband because i want one anyways.... (and i do know about the difficult eating habits) so it would be a risk

 

Lol, they can get quite large. My old LFS told me they were good anemone and that I was lucky (This was before I found 3Reef mind you, and also why they are my OLD lfs and not my current one). So I fed the lil guys. I fed em and fed em and they grew huge. I had one that had a 5" diameter and it could stretch to the top of the tank. Then I noticed my CUC was missing one by one.
Thank goodness I found this website before I got fish.

 

haha, i got a kick out of "old lfs"... One of the ones i killed was really big already. like 2.5 " dia probably and the tentacles were starting to really reach out there....