How do you grow aptasia?

What is an effective way to culture aptasia? I want them to grow in my overflow.

 

Maybe you could ask your LFS for a piece of rubble with some aiptasia on it. They'll probably give it to you for free. Just take caution they don't spread to your display

 

Gotta ask why? Just curious.

But maybe grab a rock with it on it, put it in a seperate container with some frag plugs, and poke it, shred it, play Justin Bieber, you know, something to tick it off.

also curious how you're going to keep it in the overflow and out of the DT

 

^^they have a good point. You might be able to slice off portions for it to spread. It'd be very hard keeping them out of the display though. I understand why you may want them; it gives it a cool, overgrown kind of look. But you could do the same with palythoa's or button polyps.

 

I'm not doing it for the look. I'm doing it for thier ability to consume excess food.
Also no tank is complete without a cbb. You may have to go through a few before you get a good one but the right one will keep your reef perfect.

 

HMM, cool idea, what about the sump/fuge area? peppermints?

My LFS has a aiptaisia file fish thats eating flake food and kinda cool/odd looking.

I have 2 aiptaisia in the middle of a paly colony you can have

 

yea... if you do this you WILL get aptasia in your DT. I really don't think there's anything you can do to stop it. In my setup the tank drains into the skimmer section of my sump which is in the center. My skimmer output then flows to the right into my refugium section which is the perfect ammount of flow imo, then overflows back into the skimmer section, and finally through my bubble trap to the return section on the left. Otherwise... it's a bit of a journey for anything to get from my refugium all the way back up to the DT. After my first aptasia outbreak i lucked out and purchased peppermint shrimp which actually did have a taste for it and completely rid my tank within a week; which was amazing because there were literally hundreds of the things in there. Since that time i hadn't seen a single sign of aptasia in my tank for about 2-3 years. About a year ago now i picked up a ball of chaeto from my LFS and unfortunately it had some hiding within it because not too long after adding it i found aptasia in the refugium. Now, it's taken this whole time, about a year to year and a half but i finally have 1 up in the DT /sigh. I also have a wrasse now so the chances of peppermint shrimp being a solution for me this time may be a bit of a long shot... I guess i probably should have tried to add a shrimp to the fuge to nip it in the bud but honestly didn't think about that until just now! doh! Ne how... unless you love the things that much i would NOT do it. Like someone else said, pick another species like polyps or xenia even, just don't do aptasia...

 

Must admit... i've been considering it, and not just because of aptasia...

 

your response also made my first response well... pointless, maybe that will clarify for someone else though.

 

lol