My 60g Eventual Reef Tank / Aptasia Playground

This is what I have so far, nothing special, No bells or whistles. As you will see from the pictures I have a TAD of an aptasia problem. Last night I went out and got 2 peppermint shrimp since the 1 that I had in the tank already was not doing his job. I am confident in the pair I put in last night as they went right to work for about 45 mins with the lights on eating away at it, before they did the norm and hid under a rock in fear of a sun burn. Progress on this tank will most likely stay at a slow crawl due to the price of an education these days. Oh well it will still be lots of fun. I will post new pictures as i get new fish / corals and or better equipment. Thanks and I hope you enjoy the pictures.

 

Wow you do have a lot of aiptasia! Perhaps a little bit of Aiptaisia-X is in order here?!

 

I can't see the images as again the computor is acting up but agreed, get the big ones with aiptasia x, and let the shrimp get the small ones.
BUT you need to combat aiptasia with multiple prongs....
GOOD WATER QUALITY, if the water is pristine, the aiptasia's planula(spores) will not survive and make more or at least less will survive. Get the adults with the Aiptasia X and if you are planing on using peppermint shrimp you will need like a dozen NOT 3, sorry to break it to you and your check book.. But hey, go to the lfs and tell them to give you a nice price break on the dozen, they'll do it trust me.
OR look into Berghia nudibranchs, they are obligate aiptasia eaters, meaning they do a great job eating aiptasia but if its gone they will starve, but before they starve you give them away, its the gift that keeps giving, and well eating!!

Good luck!!

 

I was planning on working on the aptasia this weekend. I already zapped about 5 of them with lemon juice as a test and they seemed to die out. I have never heard of aptasia X but I will do some research and look into it. Lemon juice a good or bad Idea? I pretty much read to get a heroin needle and inject em lol, so thats what i did..So far the 5 I zapped are dead and everything else seems fine..What do you guys think?

 

Aiptasia x works great(Red Sea) because at least what I have seen the aiptasia assumes its food and doesn't shy away and also it tends to prevent the last ditch move of releasing the planula before death.

 

Thanks for the advice guys. Last night I came home from work and the aiptasia x I ordered was sitting on my doorstep. I killed about 10 of em and decided that I would finish tonight as this is my first time using the product and wanted to make sure everything in the tank was still healthy (besides the aiptasia) once I got home from work today. I must say that the peppermint shrimp I added to the tank have helped a ton. Every day after work I have been noticing a big difference and now I am to the point where I have about 7 or 8 big aiptasia to kill tonight and then I am pretty confident that the shrimp will be able to maintain the problem fairly easily from here on out. Last weekend I cleaned the tank and moved around some of the rock to make it look better so tonight I will try and take some pictures. Maybe some before during and after nukage of the remaining aiptasia. Thanks again..

So anyone with an aiptasia problem ( A BIG ONE ) should definately invest in Aiptasia X. I think I paid $15 with shipping, fairly cheap and it works great. As far as peppermint shrimp I think it all depends on the individual. I originally bought one and he didnt touch the stuff. I went back and got 2 more and they were immediately all over it. So I would suggest buying a few and the more you have the faster they work. Later

 

Aiptasia Gone...

Here are some new pictures. For now I have seemingly won the aiptasia battle. I rearranged the rocks a bit and plan on getting more over the weekend. I want it to be a little taller all the way across. I like tangs though and want to get a hippo this weekend . Should I leave the tank how it is so he has some room to swim or do you agree that it needs more rock?

Notice the difference?


What do you think? Enough room for the tang to swim or more rock? I can probably get away with more rock and still have room for the tang to swim.

 

wow good job

 

Stand / Sump / Fuge Build










I did this over the weekend. Built new stand and built my own sump / fuge... Got some ideas from all of you here at 3 reef.. So thanks...I made the front removable / magnetic similar to Packleaders. Now the wife wants me to modify it for sea horses.
The sump / fuge is running however I didnt realize that I had no sand or anything for the fuge until after the LFS was closed. The pump I am using now is not that great but I am going to return it for a better one. I got an eshopps HOB overflow which seems to be working nicely. I also painted the back glass black while I had it away from the wall. Take a look and tell me what you think / let me know if I did anything wrong and or any modifications that would be better. Thanks again

 

Looks good!