Aiptasia anemones on my live rock!

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stratmaster

Aquarium Advice Freak
Joined
Jul 14, 2009
Messages
290
Location
Port Saint Lucie
Ok so about a month and a half ago I started to see anemones appear on my live rock. I got so excited! Although over the past month they've multipled like crazy! It's insane! So through research on the internet I see that I have a bunch of aiptasia anemones. Some people say they're good and some people say they're bad. So are they bad? I know I have the majority of them in my refugium but some how some of them manage to escape into my main tank and now they're sprouting all over the place. I actually think they're really beautiful and wouldn't mind having them, though people tell me they sting your fish. They do filter the water though correct? So would they be ok to stay in my refugium?

Should I try a Copperband butterfly fish to get them under control? I was told they eat aiptasia anemones. Will the Copperband get along with my stingray though?

Thanks,

Steve
 
Steve, whoever told you Aiptaisa's were good was off their nut. They are the bane of most reefers lives. You say you have heaps of them in your refugium? Then one probably released spores or something which got into your main tank. Unfortunately a Copperband won't go with your Ray, and the Peppermint Shrimp that are also used on Aiptasia would be a nice snack for him too. A great, cheap way to take care of Aiptasia is Kalkwasser. Using a plastic syringe you squirt the anenome with a little bit of Kalkwasser, right on to it's oral disk. This makes the anenome retreat into it's hole, making it ingest the Kalkwasser, thus killing it. A little bit on every anenome and voila! No more Aiptasia. :)
 
The only problem is I think I let the situation get to bad! There are just tons of them, and on top of that some of them are HUGE. I ended up buying a couple peppermint shrimp to put in my refugium to at least get them under control in my refugium, but I think the aiptasias are to big for the peppermints to eat. I hardly even see them, they seem uninterested in the aiptasias.

I was reading lemon juice is a home remedy that can kill them. I don't know what to do at this point, I just know there's way to many and there's more and more appearing everyday.

Steve
 
Steve, as I said above, Kalkwasser in a syringe or Joe's Juice both work in nuking Aiptasia, no matter what size. Also Peppermint's only eat small ones.
 
Steve, as I said above, Kalkwasser in a syringe or Joe's Juice both work in nuking Aiptasia, no matter what size. Also Peppermint's only eat small ones.

It worked EXCELLENT! It was actually kind of fun to inject them with the kalkwasser haha. I felt pretty guilty though, they just shrunk and died :(

Thank you for the tip though!

Steve
 
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