AIPTASIA problem.....

Hello I recently purchased a large amount of love rock from a fellow reefer and when I got it home I realized it had aiptasia on a few rocks.. I just started my tank and only have a cabbage coral , xenia, kenya tree, and 2 percs, blue tang, and a porcupine puffer which haven't messed with any corals.. But now I think I need to get a few peppermint shrimp for the problem but I don't want to let my puffer go.. What other natural options is there.. I would try cpbfly but I had 2 before in previous tanks and they always die on me... Is there any other fish that can handle this for me..

 

pepermint shrimp are a hit and miss, I would say 50/50

the coberband are better but are also hit or miss i would say 25% dont 75% do, but again teh feeding requirments are almost unreal.

there are file fish tat eat it but I have no exp. there.

the berghia nudibranch are also a natural and very effictive method to get rid of them but can be pricy and after the sptasia is gonr the die.

I am currently battling them and this is what has worked for me, I use joes juice and just hit as many as I can on one rock in one day. I then wait a week and repeat on another rock. this has given me the best results and my pep. shrimp has started to eat teh small ones in the tank.

If it is isolated to one rock though I would use kalk past and cover the rock to kill all of them. you could also remove the rock and treat it in a bucket with the joes juice to help keep them from spreading.

HTH

 

I had good luck with a Peppermint Shrimp. A few weeks after I put the little guy into the tank all the aptasia were gone.

People say they are hit or miss but you can find them fairly cheap so I would recommend giving them a try. Can't hurt.

 

Ok I'll see what I can come up with.. Thanks rc

 

on a side note though If you do the nudiebranches dont do the pepermint shrimp until after. They will eat the nudies

 

Yeah that's true mr. ocean.. I just know my puffer will eat them.. I kinda want to take him back to the lfs but my kids kind of love him.. Lol.. I have plenty of hiding places he can't get into .. Will that help or are they as good as gone?

 

they should last and hide in the rocks for a bit but if that puffer catches the pep shrimp it's gone

i've had very good luck w/peppermint shrimp but when i had some larger aptasia they couldn't finish off the aptasia x works good but make sure all flow and pumps and everything is off before you do it..

someone once told me that aptasia isn't exactly bad it just can kill and sting other corals and they are not popular which is why everyone wants to get rid of them..

i would say throw in a couple peppermint shrimp tho

 

Ok great thanks for the help..

 

Moved to-------General Reef Topics.

 

A lot of them? or just on a few rocks?

If you have just a few rocks infested, then you can remove those rocks, deal with those seperately.

Otherwise if they are pretty sporatic, a couple of weeks of hitting them with some kalk paste or aptasia x will knock them out.

My peps didn't touch my bigger aptasia, so it was a combination of killing those and the peps that eliminated mine.