Aptasia

[mr-jimbo]

My question is:

Would cutting the heads off and removing the heads from the tank and leaving the stems to rot kill them off,or am i expecting a to easy solution,i did get two peppermints but i think there on holiday :huh:

[ssoros]

Hi,

As far as I know taking the heads off of them will not completly kill them, they will just grow back. I believe you have to kill them from the base to hopfully kill ir completly which is easyer said than done ;)

HTH
Ross

[bony]

you will have to inject them with viniger or lemon juice first, then i use a bigger syringe to suck them up. they are really tuff and take a right beating! just cutting their head of will just make them spread even more.

[mr-jimbo]

Ok thanks for the replies :thumbsup: ...been using Joe's juice but it costs and i don't think its that great...looks like i have to get diabetic needles and lemon juice

[robsmarines]

mr jimbo

always try the natural method of aptaisia removal pepermint shrimps or camel back shrimps copperbands are the best but need ideal water conditions plenty of live rock in a peaceful aquarium and trained to eat aptaisia and a subsitute frozen mysis or brine they will only eat the small and young aptaisia the large ones will have to be removed by other means but you can use the adult aptaisia to your advantage by crushing it into small bits and propergating it so to speak,these will then be you new aptaisia for the next feed and so on you can also have a small fragging tank for aptaisia my copper band just cant get enough of them i can put 12 aptaisia out of the frag tank and no sooner has the rock touched the bottom of the aquarium he has ate them stripped the rock clean (any one got any spare aptaisia they dont want) but when reading this dont just go out and buy a copperband these are delicate fish inexperienced keepers should try other methods first unless you know a good lfs that have trained copperbands all my copperbands were trained for the customer to eat aptaisia.
camel backs will only eat small aptaisia as well they cant tackle the large ones as the shrimp itself would become a meal for the aptaisia. (they will eat aptaisia just give them time) pepermints will only eat small ones as well unless the aptaisia is closed up then it can be attacked at the stem/base.
forget all the kalk injections,hotwater (vinegar,lemon juice,which are both acetic acid base in turn may drop the ph) forget joes and elimi aptaisia these are only a last resort ther are only one way the natural way if you need any more info just ask.

robsmarines

[wayne in norway]

I think kalk or joes juice is much better than lemon juice or boiling water in terms of practicality, but bear in mind that you will only be injecting the ones you can see, not the others it is propogating from it's 'foot' as it exists, moves around.
I used a Kleins butterfly thoug these aren't 100% reef safe. Some othereasy butterflies like auriga will destroy them, but are totally reefunsafe

[instantsquid]

I had a couple recently that arrived on the back of a piece of rock I purchased with some button polyps on. I noticed that their feet were attached in depressions in the rock. I was attaching some corals so had mixed up some Milliput - I brushed the Aptaisia until it retracted right into itself, then simply filled the depressions in the rock with Milliput.

Haven't seen them since :D

- Ian.

[mr-jimbo]

Thanx for the advice everyone,CB was one fish that was on my list,but i have read that a lot of people lose these fish, i would say i am experienced in keeping fish(almost 23+ years but new to marine) i have read about the probs acid from using lemon juice and vineger and wasn't keen on injecting them with that because of it being in the tank,i have read a few topics which peeps are using superglue as well,so my plan is, i have a small holding tank painstaking as it will be im going to take a rock out a time and do the injections then rinse and return the rock to the tank hopefully cleaned,hell i may even fill the aips in with some milliput..

OH! may i also add re taking rock out..my setup was bought 2nd hand and has only been running a week and half so taking the rock out wont be a prob....

Thanx again guys/gals

[Martyn]

Injecting every Aiptasia can be very hard to do nearly always you do not find the hidden away Aiptasia that you never see these continue to breed.

peppermint shrimp also are not often sucessful in removing all Aiptasia They have plenty of other foods they will eat first that is in and on any live rock and in sand beds.
You end up with a large loss of your epifauna, infauna, macroinfauna, meiofauna, microinfauna,

Butterfly fish:
Copperbands do remove all aptasia's from an aquarium in time and then prevent reseeding of them.
However the CopperBands can become stressed very easy I have used copperbands in my propagation farm but on occasions I have rearranged a whole tank of rockwork and corals/frags, and on each occasion I have done a major rearrangement of a tank I have found a copperband on its side dieing and not been able to save it.
Some of these copperbands I have had for years but a major disturbance seems to have stressed them out badly and they have not recoverd.
IMO Copperbands are a delicate fish to keep due to them getting badly stressed out on any major disturbances.
I won't keep copperbands anymore as my tanks from time to time are fully reorganised and stock corals are removed and replaced for getting frags and the frags are removed for sale and replaced by new frags a lot of disturbances not suited to a fish like a copperband that does seem to get badly stressed out.

I have found a hardy replacement for the copperbands
The longnosed butterfly fish is hardy and can handle major disturbances in a system (like a major rearrangement of rock work) with no signs of problems.
They will also eat aiptasia's the larger the fish becomes it can cope with larger aiptasia's.
And they prevent any aiptasia anywhere in a system from reseeding.
I have 14 tanks connected not all are lit or inhabited by fish or corals yet these tanks with out butterfly fish have aiptasia's and the tanks with long nosed butterfly fish have no sign of aptasia's.
And there is a lot less loss and extinctions of your epifauna, infauna, macroinfauna, meiofauna, microinfauna,
by keeping the longnose instead of peppermint shrimp.

Hope that may help a little.

Martyn

[Martyn]

I should add what these are (From Rob Toonen Notes)

Martyn.

epifauna:
includes all those critters that live on or around structures on the surface of the sea floor. This community is typically dominated by corals, barnacles, hydroids, bivalves, tunicates, bryozoans, sponges and tubiculous (tube-building) polychaetes - or to put it simply, this is the stuff on our live rock that we buy for our tanks.

infauna:
These are the animals living beneath the sediment surface.
which have these groups.

macroinfauna:
(animals retained when sediments are strained through a 0.5 mm mesh). These are the worms, bivalves, echinoderms and other relatively large organisms that live beneath the sediment surface. In undisturbed sediments, these animals are frequently invisible except for the occasional fecal casting, burrow hole, or siphon tube

meiofauna:
(pass through a 0.5 mm screen but are retained on a 0.05 mm mesh screen) The meiofauna include a taxonomically diverse group of critters, including rotifers, gastrotrichs, kinorhynchs, nematodes, tradigrades, copepods, ostracods, many turbellarians and oligochaetes, some polychaetes, and a few specialized hydrozoans, nemerteans, bryozoans, gastropods, aplacophorans, holothurians and tunicates.


microinfauna:
(animals that pass through a 0.05mm mesh screen) - these animals include the bacteria, flagellates, diatoms, cyanobacteria and ciliates.
Like the meiofauna, these organisms can be extremely important to the healthy functioning of a sand bed, but are relatively poorly understood and understudied. The function these organisms provide, however, are exceedingly important to the issues of nutrient recycling

[mr-jimbo]

Some very interesting points there...thanks a lot for that info...Long Nosed looks a lovely fish..and one to consider after a readup B)

Decided not to remove the Lr so im currently using A surgical syringe and boiling water and seems to be working better than JJ'S
Cheers for that Martyn :thumbsup:

[Bhupz]

Mr-Jimbo

Are you injecting the aiptasia while still in the aquarium, do you have to swtich off the pumps and then inject these little things. I've just bought joes juice so will have to try it now, I didn;t read this thread until today and I am a complete newbie. I have quite a few of these aiptasia in my tank. Do I fill the syringe with jj and go as near to the aptasia as possible and feed a little bit to it.

[mr-jimbo]

Hi M8

I did switch all pumps off so there was little movement which made the task easier,you have to get the syringe into the mouth which i found difficult using the one supplied with JJ's + i found the liquid lumpy even after vigorous shaking..i have now got rid of those pests thank god ,allthough there are a few at the back i cannot reach unless i disturbed the reef ,but you may find you will go down the same road as me and many others and use lemon juice with a surgical syringe for added benefit,i found with this syringe i could inject straight into the stems if i couldn't get the mouths,i also just done one full syringe dose per day which took around half hour until they were history using lemon juice because it is acidic,i have half bottle left and i will be playing sentry from now on towards these pests...

Best of luck m8 with patience and a steady hand you will win ....they will lose :lol:

Jim :thumbsup: