killing aiptasia

ive been useing aiptasia-x. i know it will kill corals. i read u can use lemon juice as well. will lemon juice kill coral?

 

The X is very targeted, lots of users with success. The directions say to turn off flow.

An alternative is peppermint shrimp (not camel backs).

 

peppermint shrimp! Get a couple nice ones and give them a day or 2. Our 20g was clean in a matter of hours.

 

Aaiptasia-x works well. But you are fitting a loosing battle. If you can see one or two. There are more that you can not see. I fought this battle for months in my 150. Purchased 4 peppermint shrimp and haven't had a problem. Over a year now.

 

I used peppermint shrimp very effective plus it cool to watch them just attack the Aiptasia.

 

I've had over 10 in my 20 g tank. Wanted to fight them the natural way first, got a peppermint shrimp and it just sat under a rock for a couple of weeks and then disappeared. Now I've got "stop aiptasia" from dr. Foster and smith and it's been working great! It took a couple of weeks to get them all but now I haven't seen any in at least 5 days! And it didn't bother the corals in which the bad anemone was hiding. I'd prefer for the shrimp to survive though...

 

my only problem is that i have a coral banded in a 55g.

 

The problem I had with peppermint shrimp is that once the aiptasia were gone, they attacked and killed my rock flower anemone. You can find plenty of threads here about them killing corals, as well. Adding one predator to eradicate another can sometimes end with undesirable results.

As for your original question, if done properly, lemon juice will not harm corals directly. You must be careful to only inject a few aiptasia between water changes, however, as too much will upset your pH balance.

Here's a good guide on the subject:

http://saltaquarium.about.com/cs/msubpestaiptasia/a/aa061903.htm

 

Yes, you can use Lemon Juice. You need a syringe to inject the juice into the mouths of the Aiptasia. Try not to let alot of the juice get into the tank. Don't do 20 of them at one time.

 

Here's a better way: Get a needle and, instead of lemon juice or aiptasia X, just use boiling water. Ravages the little suckers. If you can get them in the mouth you can kill them outright, otherwise you melt off parts of them and then shrimp and crabs do the rest. (I actually had a gorilla crab that took care of one before I got that little sucker out!) Peppermints are GREAT at killing the little ones, but they avoid the larger specimins. I have only a single aiptasia left and that's only because he's guarded by clams.

Also keep a close eye on your tank. I caught one in the process of relocating once and plucked him off a rock with a pair of tweezers!