polypie looking critters overrunning tank

[wchill]

I asked this question about 6 months ago and received several comments. I have these little round polypie looking things overrunning my tank. I was advised to use lemon juice, hot water and pickling lime paste. The hot water and lemon juice temporarily contolled them but not enough. I cannot find pickling (slack lime) in any of the stores around here. Someone had a difeerent name for this stuff. What? and how do I bext apply it to the polyps in the tank? Thanks

 

[mcoomer]

Polypie looking critters? Are you talking about aiptasia? If so, are we talking about a few or a widespread outbreak. If there are only a few, pickup some super glue gel and aquamend epoxy and seal them in their hole. Make a small ball of epoxy, put a dab of glue on the bottom and mash right down on top of the aip. The epoxy will conform to the shape of the hole and the super glue will hold it in place as it cures. The epoxy is a reddish purple color so when coralline starts to grow on it it will blend in and you won't even see it. If you have a widespread outbreak you should probably pick up a couple peppermint shrimp. They are known to eat aips but not every shrimp will so your experience may differ. Put a few of those in the tank, epoxy over the ones you can see and reach, and stay at it. You can beat aips but you have to work at it and you have to kill them completely because the tiniest bit of living tissue will regenerate and you'll have more.

Mike

 

[user 26995]

Can you post a pic of these polyps? They could be majanos.
There are a lot of members close to your area. Maybe someone could stop by and help you decide what to do about them.

 

[wchill]

THanks. I believe they are the aiptasia varaiety and not the majanos as some have suggested. they have over run my tank pretty well. They are on most on my live rock. Some about the sixe of a pencil eraser and some are slightly smaller than a dime. I was on another blog last fall about this and someone advised the pickling lime paste definitely works best but as I said, I cannot find it in that form in the stores. (Guess home canning is a dying art). With your suggestion it seems very problematic to be removing all of my infected rock and treating each critter in the manner you suggetsed. AS you stated, if it was only a minor breakout that would probably work but I think I am way past that now. Thanks for the info.

 

[mcoomer]

You can control and eradicate a widespread outbreak of aiptasia but you have to be persistent and you should attack them with as many tools as you can. Pick up some peppermint shrimp. Cover the ones that are easy to reach with epoxy. Mix up a batch of kalk paste to cover them with. If a rock is in a position that it can be easily removed do it and throw it on your BBQ grill on low to medium heat for an hour.

Check out this video of Berghia Nudibranchs eating aiptasia...there are methods to controlling these critters so don't surrender your tank to them.

Mike

 

[trido]

wchill, Wallmart on 164th carries Mrs. Wages pickling lime. Its in the canning section near the middle of the store. You can use that to make a kalk paste and inject it into them with a syringe. Unfortunately, to get a syringe capable of handling a thick slurry you may need to by some Joe's juice or other type of LFS bought aptasia controller first.

I prefer to use an aptasia burner instead though. you can either buy one here or build your own for under $20 with these instructions

 

[TJL]

Chill, good advice ^above^ definitely need to use all tools/weapons available to eradicate these lil pests. Two years ago it took me about six months in my 75g using Aiptasia-X,(8)Peppermint Shrimp and (8) Berghia Nudibranchs and have not seen any since. Good Hunting.

Cheers, Todd

 

[wchill]

Sorry folks, was in Mexico scuba diving for a week so left my worries about the critter invaision out of sight out of mind. Thanks for all the info. I will get busy irradicating.

 

[crazyfish253]

Personal I can't stand peppermint shrimp .... they irritate me with there swaying back and fourth, trampling over coral. Stealing food from coral . They are like drunk bumbling idiots in the tank if you even ever see them again. Just my personal opinion

 

[pandora32]

You can also try a file fish.

 

[kpiotrowski]

Personal I can't stand peppermint shrimp .... they irritate me with there swaying back and fourth, trampling over coral. Stealing food from coral . They are like drunk bumbling idiots in the tank if you even ever see them again. Just my personal opinion

don't pep shrimp bother bergia nudibranch? and if so, I would go straight for the bergia and not waste time with shrimp that don't always eat aiptasia.

 

[Herefishyfishy]

they irritate me with there swaying back and fourth, trampling over coral. They are like drunk bumbling idiots in the tank

You talking about me?

On a serious note, I have irradicated them in an overrun 180 before, one at a time. Used a hypo filled with boiling water. It needs to be kept VERY hot such as in a styro cup. They can hide but they can't run...

 

[crazyfish253]

No LOL, any update?

 

[Peppie]

Personal I can't stand peppermint shrimp .... they irritate me with there swaying back and fourth, trampling over coral. Stealing food from coral . They are like drunk bumbling idiots in the tank if you even ever see them again. Just my personal opinion

Crazy,
Please tell us how you really feel!!
I think you may be a touch bias. LOL

 

[N1Husker]

I tried the peppermint shrimp, they didn't touch it, then I tried Aptasia-X, it killed it only to have another pop up. Now one of my red legged hermit crabs seems to have developed a taste for them and if one pops up he mows it down. I've have seen him actually munching on it.

 

[user 26995]

Its hit and miss with peppermint shrimp. What funny is most people dont have luck with them, but recently I had an outbreak of aiptasia in my pico. they were just about covering the whole 3 lb rock. I caught one of my peppermints in my 90 and put him in my pico. Two days all aiptasia was gone. At least all that can be seen.