Can You Really Ever Completely RID You Tank of Aiptasia?

The friendliest place on the web for anyone with an interest in aquariums or fish keeping!
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.

TheChad

Aquarium Advice FINatic
Joined
Dec 20, 2005
Messages
568
Location
Warrensburg, IL
Hey all,

Abou 1.5 month's ago I bought a couple of pieces of LR, which I latar found had a couple of Aiptasia's on them. I purchased some Joe's Juice and THOUGHT I killed them.

1 of them didn't come back, the other has come back 2 times in the same place, and several other's have poped up around the tank.

The problem with Joe's Juice is that it is almost impossible to apply it unless you have a fair amount of room, and can get at them straight on. Also They need to be of a decent size, because the little tiny ones are impossible to apply the product on.

I am now wondering if it is even possible to completely rid your tank of them them? or will they just keep growing?

I also just found a couple of Bubble Algae balls on my LR. Neither Aiptasia's or Bubble Algae were present in my tank before.

It amazes me that these 'weeds' grow out of no where, but things like pods, don't grow at all? My tank has been set up for almost 1.5 years, and I have yet to find any pods in my tank at all.

Thanks for the help.

-TheChad
 
They ARE weeds. Like crabgrass (lol), they can pop up at random moments from any piece of flesh (usually not the tentacles though).

You can get rid of them totally, but you never know if you have one in waiting- or if they're living in the filter, sand etc. I have a lot of little ones coming out of the sand lately...

If you smoosh one, they can regenerate of course- and sadly sometimes they take a while to reappear. It took one of my larger aipts (kind of an experiment) a week and a half to start growing a head from the base.
 
I went 9 yrs without aptisia and then I bought some zoos and then I have some on that rock and some around that. We introduce them in our tanks without even knowing. I bought this paste from my LFS and put a glob in the mouth and it disentigrates. It says .9% sodium chloride paste. It is in a syringe without the needle. I also bought a couple pepermint shrimp to get any small ones I might have missed.
 

Attachments

  • 100_0483_150.jpg
    100_0483_150.jpg
    39.6 KB · Views: 29
melosu58 said:
I went 9 yrs without aptisia and then I bought some zoos and then I have some on that rock and some around that. We introduce them in our tanks without even knowing. I bought this paste from my LFS and put a glob in the mouth and it disentigrates. It says .9% sodium chloride paste. It is in a syringe without the needle. I also bought a couple pepermint shrimp to get any small ones I might have missed.

I wanted to try a peppermint shrimp, but i have read they are extremely hit or miss, and I have not been able to find a fully grown peppermint shrimp at any of the LFS's. My other 2 shrimp (Skunk Cleaner, and Red Fire Shrimp) are fully grown, and I am worried that if I get a Peppermint shrimp that is small, the other 2 shrimp will kill it.


-TheChad
 
I don't think the shrimp you have now will harm a new comer. Both skunks and fire shrimp are relatively peaceful, and their claws are basically harmless. There may be some occasional jousting but nothing to serious.
 
MT79 said:
I don't think the shrimp you have now will harm a new comer. Both skunks and fire shrimp are relatively peaceful, and their claws are basically harmless. There may be some occasional jousting but nothing to serious.


The Fire Shrimp (Smaller of the 2) is the boss, He's also the oldest. The Cleaner roams most the tank, the Fire Shimp sticks to just the right 1/4 of the tank, from time to time the Skunk cleaner will cross paths with the Fire shrimp, and the fire shrimp quickly jousts as you said, and the skunk cleaner quickly goes the other way.

When I first introduced the Skunk cleaner, I put 2 in the tank, The Fire shrimp was not real happy about it, and the next morning 1 of the 2 was dead. The other just kind of stayed out of the Fire Shrimp's way untill he got as big, and now bigger than the Fire Shrimp.

-TheChad
 
Yeah, fire shrimp are fairly sedentary.
and the next morning 1 of the 2 was dead
I would probably chalk that up to LFS/acclimation stress. FWIW I've kept peppermint shrimp w/ skunk shrimp in my 55 w/ no real issues. Having plenty of LR, wich you have, is also beneficial for them. HTH
 
I added two pepps, they seem to do a little better in numbers. They demilished one (Aiptasia) and the other is still there. I will wait until it gets too big and then I'll take care of it. They do seem to like the smaller ones and a pair of pepps might keep the new ones in check.
 
I use a calcium addative in my water, seems to help with coraline growth.

My LFS suggested filling a needle with a water/kalkswasser solution (ALOT of klalkswasser, at the saturation point) and inject itinto the apatsia. It worked, killed all the ones I could see in a few seconds, and it actually put less kalkswasser into the tank than I do on a normal water change.

I then got a peppermint to get rid of the small ones that I cant get a needle into or even to. I havent seen any aparsia in a couple of weeks now
 
From what I can tell of my 72 I don't have any aptasia in it anymore. When I moved my tank a couple of weeks ago I removed the one rock that had a few on it and put it into the 10g QT tank and have since JJ the hell out of the rock. I have 4 peps in my tank with a CBS and a Skunk with no problems. I would like to get a fire shrimp for my wife...she just loves the color...of course I don't mind it either...lol
 
Another vote for the peppermint shrimp!

About a month after I started up my tank (46g), I spotted a little aptasia and tried plucking it out. Yeah... I didn't know better. About three weeks later when I noted TWO little aptasia sprouting out this time, I went to my LFS store for Joe's Juice, but ended up with Blue Life Aiptasia Control instead. This stuff...

http://www.marinedepot.com/md_viewItem.asp?idproduct=BL2111

The gal at the LFS personally vouched for it, so I gave it a try. Great stuff. Just squirt the goo over the thing, and it's gone. I think all it is kalk paste, but I'm not sure. Whatever it is, it works.

After nuking three of them with the stuff, I decided to get a peppermint shrimp. Ever since, I haven't had to nuke any. In fact, I've never even seen any since. It could be coincidental I suppose, but it seems odd that as soon as I got it, the little aptasia explosion stopped.

When I added the peppermint, I already had a skunk in there. They get along fine and stay at opposite ends of the tank. I've got a little cave that opens to the back of the tank that the peppermint quickly adopted as his home. Every once in a while, the two shrimp cross paths and the skunk usuaully chases the peppermint a bit but the peppermint is definitely the shyer of the two and goes scurrying back to his cave.

I'd get a peppermint - it couldn't hurt. They're pretty funny to watch, staggering around the tank like they've had too much to drink!
 
LOL they are funny to watch!....Like I said I have 4 in my tank...you should see it when they line up after lights out and sway together....next time they do it I'll grab the video cam and get some vid of it and post it....it is soooooo funny looking!!! Like they are little drunken sailors singing....
 
Just wanted to add, when I first got my tank setup I had a maaaaad amount of aipstasia. They were everywhere! I got me some Joe Juice and 3 peppermint shrimp (back when they were super cheap!) and went about 2 years with no aipstasia. I added 2 new cleaner shrimp last month and I was bending down, looking through a rock to see them(just a few days ago!), and I found one. Aipstasia! It hung out for 2 years now out of sight. Then of course I moved all the rock and can't find it now, but that's my story. :)
 
Add another vote for the Pepp Shrimp...I had about 4 aiptasia stalks in my 45, varying in size. I added one small/medium sized Peppermint Shrimp and lo-and-behold, days later the aiptasia were all gone. Granted, the largest stalk was the last one to go, but did disappear one night.

And prior to adding the Pepp, I have one medium sized Cleaner and smaller sized Fire Shrimp in tank. And considering my tank is a hex (tall and narrow), all the shrimp get along fine.

But the best was when I first added the Peppermint...he did about 50 laps sprinting around the tank in a circle, "hurdling" over any hermits or snails that were in his way!
 
salty27 said:
But the best was when I first added the Peppermint...he did about 50 laps sprinting around the tank in a circle, "hurdling" over any hermits or snails that were in his way!


LOL.

I purchased 2 small one's yesterday, and I put the 1st one in the tank, and coulnd't find it. I looked for 10 minutes, when I finally found him, he was running around my Hydor Spinning powerhead, As it was spinning, he was just running, like a tread mill.

-TheChad
 
Back
Top Bottom