Whats your aiptasia stories?

Hey everyone,

This is boywithafishtank, and today i was thinking about Aiptasia. The creepy, hideous, annoying and ugly aiptasia that we all hate. I wanted to know your guys stories on Aiptasia anemones. Did you have problems with them once? Do you still have problems with them? Have you had trouble with eradicating? If you did eradicate them all, how did you do it?

Why am i making this topic?:
I want this topic, to be based on peoples experiences. Not only can we share our horrible stories with others, but some beginners might learn from it. I know that i could use some advice on how to eradicate Aiptasia. So this topic is mainly made for fun, but also for learning.

Whats your story with Aiptasia anemones?
I started in the hobby a little over 6 months ago. I discovered alot of interesting things on the rocks. Before i bought my reef tank, i had researched for months, to make sure that i got nothing wrong. I discovered the basic things about hitchhikers, and which ones you should avoid. So, i went over to my tank and looked every single day, and i would literally see new things popping up everyday. I first saw a majano anemone. I heard that blasting boiling freshwater on them for a period of time, can actually kill them. Thats what i did, and they got eradicated and had no problems with them at all. I saw an Aiptasia aswell. Sadly, it was placed to long behind the caves in my live rock, that i really couldn't reach it. I removed a live rock, and blew boiling freshwater on top of the anemone. It slowly shrank down, and it sort of exploded. A week after, my tank was INFESTED with aiptasia. Apparently, Aiptasia will release larvae out of their mouth when they feel threatened. A syringe filled with boiling water is not enough to kill ALL of these larvae, so they will swim out in the tank, settle somewhere and create new Aiptasia anemones. Since that day, i've never been able to kill all of the Aiptasias in my tank. I've tried so many different things. The first thing i did, was adding peppermint shrimp. And truly, they ate some of them (If they were hungry enough). However, one of my two peppermint shrimps started to eat my Neon Green Frogspawn coral, which by the way is one of my most favorite corals in this hobby, so i threw them in the back of my sump. I sold them a week after that, and they now live in a shrimp tank. I've always hated aiptasia, and i still do. My tank is filled with them. I think there are a little over a hundred of them. I have to use Aiptasia-X every single week when i do waterchanges, but its just not enough. It only delays the problem. The worst thing, is that i cant feed my fish, without feeding all of the aiptasia aswell. For example, if i try to feed my chromis fish some Cyclop-eeze, the aiptasia will quickly catch them. They are incredibly good at catching food. Also, pellets that i feed my dottyback are also catched by most of my aiptasia. Its driving me nuts! Right now, i'm just killing the big aiptasia, and the aiptasia close to my corals. I'm thinking of soon adding a berghia nudibranch, and i will cross my fingers that it will work. So guys, whats your story?

 

I have only had one piece of live rock with aptasia. I took that piece out and let it dry out for a month. Only this week have I reintroduced it to my fuge, so far so good. As a precautionary measure I have purchased some peppermint shrimp and plan on keeping some in both my DT as well as my fuge. I picked up the shrimp from Reef2Go.com They're doing a special at the moment. BOGO for $3.99.

This weekend while looking at one of my LFSs I was FLOORED at the size of some of the aptasia in some of the tanks. At first I was, "what kind of polyp is that?" Then I realized it was aptasia. One piece was at least 4" tall and about 2" in diameter. I've never seen one that big before. I was growing on the glass to boot. CRAZY. Needless to say I purchased nothing from this store, and probably wont be going back. My wife was annoyed and has started calling me the fish store tease. Because I go look and if I don't ike what I see I don't get anything. She's growing weary of looking at rocks, snails and hermit crabs.

 

No, I don't think so. They release zygotes which get fertilized in the water column. The larvae then settle in the substrate where they grow into new aiptasia.

 

Ah, thats how it works! I just knew larvae was involved

 

My experience with Aiptaisa.

Well, I looked in my tank one morning and saw a nice little anemone looking thing. Took a few pictures and posted them to ID what it was. Comes back as - Aiptaisa. So I researched about them. Figured out ways to kill it and how not to kill it. So luckily it was on a live rock near the top. I took the rock out. Put it in a bucket and grabbed some lemon juice. Drenched the thing in lemon juice, but I couldn't grab the remains of it and pull it out. So me being who I am.. Looked around my work desk to see what I could use to get rid of it.. I ended up taking my propane torch and burning the one crevice that the Aiptaisa was in. And right after that, Put the rock back in the tank.

So far so good. My tank has been running for a few weeks now, with no sign on Aiptaisa.

 

Aiptasia-X has worked for me for the few that I have found.

 

I like the way you roll Scape!

 

kill it! Kill it with fire! :d

 

Haha thanks!

 

Muahaha! It must die! xD