Another Fish?

[stresco]

Hi all. I have a serious aiptasia problem in my tank. I use Joe's juice, or Kalk when I am out but i never seem to get them all and this constant expense of Joe's Juice is getting on my nerves to be honest. Dont get me wrong, it does what it says, it kills aiptasia and no harm has come to my corals when it comes into contact with them, but it gets expensive paying 7.00 or better for those little 2oz bottles. I can go through a bottle in one dosing of my tank. I have a lot of heavy rock that i cant take out of my tank to get the ones hiding under them so I always find new ones sprouting.

Here is the thing, I have a 55gal tank with a sump and fuge system. It has a DSB and over 120lbs of LR between them. The tank is a reef setup, with feather dusters, inverts and corals SPS, LPS, Zoos, etc. It has 3 fish in it. A 26" eel, a 6" purple tang, and a 5" harlequin tuskfish. My levels are balanced (0) except for my nitrates which stay at 20-40ppm. I do 10-15gal water changes weekly to keep the trates down. Ca 550, Alk 12.5. I want to add a Copperband Butterfly to my system to eat the aiptasias. Do you think i can get away with this? Will this just be TOOOOO much of a bio load? Will the tang or tusk bully it? Will the eel stress it out? I read that these fish will not do will in a tank with "stress inducing" fish. Is this true? Has anybody had any experience with these fish? What ever knowledge you can share I would like to hear.

Steve.

 

[darb2]

I bought some peppermint shrimp because books say they eat aiptasia. less bio load

 

[stresco]

I guess you didnt read all of my thread there darb...hehehehe. With the fish in my tank, pepermint shrimp wouldnt last 2 minutes. They would be on the menu for my other fish . That will increase the bioload when they poop em out.

 

[luntiz]

Copperband will eat the aiptasia but also nip at your corals and surely eat your featherdusters.

 

[Fuvibo1]

you got a big eel there and it will cost lots of stress to the new fish and with the addition of the fish it would just create more problem.

 

[BBReef]

i just use lemon juice, lemons from the tree in my backyard. you dont need to use much of it as long as you get the aptasia really well. i usually do this when i do water changes cuzz i can just syphon the aptasia and leftover juice right out. it really works well and is much cheaper. well at least for me, lemons are free.

 

[saberry]

you got a big eel there ....

8O

 

[Overstocker]

If it is really bad, put the fish in QT and dump some peppermint shrimp in there for about a week. Then you have a peppermint snack for your fish when they go back in.

 

[lando]

I have a Copperband in my reef and it leaves my soft corals alone. But I think it would get your feather dusters. Try the peppermint shrimp. Get a couple and see what happens.

 

[Bearfan]

The peps would be lunch. I don't really think this is a wise investment in money.

 

[Hara]

the other thing with copperbands is that not all of them will eat the aiptaisia, also, if you feed the tank, they learn to eat what you feed and then will quit eating the aips.