aiptasia help

[wrasse326]

I never knew what aiptasia was but I always heard bad things about them. I noticed today that my rock that used to be full of zoas now only has 2 or 3 left. I noticed a while ago they were dying but I thought my choc chip starfish was eating them so I put him in another tank. Now I notice there's more dead and I finally looked up aiptasia.. and that is what's now all over the rock where the zoas used to be and in a couple other places also. So how do you get rid of them? Any help will be great

 

[Darylb]

Aiptasia x will get rid of it you buy it from you fish shop and just inject it into the mouth of it read the instructions that come with it and you should be fine

 

[Voshon247]

I also read certain type of shrimps like pepper shrimps ate them but not too sure

 

[Convict2161]

Shrimp are hit and miss. Get yourself the X or Joes Juice, even boil lemon juice.

 

[Voshon247]

If the chems are reef safe then go ahead but shrimps might be a more natural approach

 

[Ingy]

I used peppermint shrimp and they not only eat the aipastasia you can see, they eat the stuff you can't see. Although some people say they are hit & miss, I have only heard people report sucess when they tried.

 

[54seaweed]

boiling hot lemon juice works wonders , Ive taken out about 8 aipastasia pest with this method ,seems the peppermint shrimp just stair at them not even touching them it's almost like there afraid of them

 

[wrasse326]

Well i used scalding water on some and they seem to of died and i ordered 6 peppermint shrimp to see if they will get the rest. I try not to use chemicals in my tank.

 

[Voshon247]

Ok see how that works out and inform us

 

[wrasse326]

The rocks that had aiptasia on that I sprayed with scalding water I put them in my other tank with my choc chip starfish because the rocks didn't have any other coral left on them. The aiptasia killed all of my zoas. And the starfish has eaten almost all of the remains of those aiptasia haha. He's working his way to the bottom of the rock to get the others. So those are hopefully for sure gone. So in my main tank there's only 6 tiny ones left so hopefully the shrimp will take care of them. But I've gota get my coral banded shrimp out before I put the peppermint in because I read he coral banded might eat the peppermint.

 

[Voshon247]

It might if it is well fed it shouldn't and its when the shrimp molts and other creature would have time too eat it

 

[54seaweed]

lemon juice isn't a chemical it's bio degradable the boiling hot juice along with the citric acid has just the right punch to kill these pests
I don't like chemicals either so your not alone there
my coral banded shrimp don't mess with my peppermints just a fyi

 

[wrasse326]

Oh ok. Well if the shrimp don't eat the last few aiptasia I'll get some lemon juice. And good to know about the coral banded shrimp because I really didn't wanna have to try to get him out because he always stays in the middle of this pile of rocks lol sucks trying to catch anything in here with all the rocks lol although my sailfin tang and hoevans wrasse will swim right into a net if there's food in it haha so at least if I need to catch them I can