Starting Over and need to eratticate Aiptasia now

[britany_shelton]

So I know all of the different ideas for killing small amounts of Aiptasia to prevent what has happened to my tank but what I cant find is good ways to kill it after it has taken over.

We have probably thousands of anemones in our 180 gallon tank.
We had a reef tank and two years ago, had a severely hot weather and everything in the tank got cooked. After the loss, I gave up, and after all of the money that had been invested and time I just couldn't handle doing it all again right a way.
We now have a chiller and what happened before should not happen again.

But anyway, I let the tank get taken over. All I have in the tank is about 250 Lbs of live rock (covered in Aiptasia) and sand and 1 yellow tail damsel.

I do not mind taken out rocks and do massive murders but I am trying to think of the best way to do that.
Boil the rock? Leave the rocks out of water? Put them in freshwater? All of these options kill everything! I know that and I think that is what I am trying to prevent. Is there anything that I can do that will keep some things alive or should I just start over and have no more LIVE Rock?

I know there is no real Good Ways to do this but I just do not have the time to inject thousands of little aiptasia mouths/butts. I am sure they would reproduce faster than I could kill them anyway.

Thanks for any ideas.
Sorry guys (and gals) I know this is a big no no.

 

[Bosco83]

Why don't you just get a Filefish or a Copperband Butterfly or some other Aiptasia eating animal and let them do all the work?

Brian

 

[britany_shelton]

The only animal that I think can eat them fast enough to kill them faster than they can reproduce is going to be the Berghia Nudibranch. I do not know anybody that has done this personally.
Does anyone on here know of anywhere to get them? I would prefer to find a place locally but, if I must order online, any good recommendations?

 

[Burke]

Check with Barrier, they have had them in the past. I have a couple friends that had similar outbreak and attempted to take the rocks out to target just the aiptasia (with little sucess). The only way that really worked did also kill everything else on the rock. I guess the big question is, what's in the tank??? Could your tank handle a cycle???

You could also save the rock that doesn't have any or very few (and target the them). That may be a better way to go. But you would need to keep a close eye out for new ones... Just a thought.

Good luck.

 

[stalefish]

I think when the world finally ends, the only things that will survive are cockroaches and aiptasia.

I've had really great luck with an aiptasia eating file fish (and I swear I saw one at Barrier Reef today, but I didn't look too closely). Mine just seems to love them. I've got a main display and a 28 gallon nano. Aiptasia had completely taken over my nano and he almost cleaned them out in a few weeks. I then moved him to my display and he cleaned out the couple of dozen in there as well. Once he finished off the aiptasia there he still seemed to thrive just fine eating normal fish food. Better still, even after adjusting his diet, he didn't lose his appetite for aiptasia either as I'd notice a few pop up here or there and then they'd be gone.

In the meantime, I must have taken him out of the nano a little too soon because there were a few under the rocks that started to propagate and then I had some water quality issues in the nano and they just exploded again, so he's back in the nano temporarily and in about a week he's taken out around 1/4 of them already.

I've heard that they can occasionally nibble on LPS or softies, but mine has been beautifully behaved. Plus, as you can tell with my moving him back and forth, they're fairly easy to catch if they do turn into a problem.

I've heard berghias work great as well, but I think that to get enough to do some damage in a 180, it'd take a lot and they're not exactly dirt cheap. Either that, or you'd have to wait for them to successfully breed enough to build up a population large enough to eat them faster then the aiptasia spread.

Plus, I think you'll get more long term enjoyment out of the file fish. When I first got him, I thought he was kind of a blah looking fish I'd only keep for utilitarian purposes, but he's really grown on me and has become one of my favorites - he's got a lot of personality and is always looking around, plus even though he's out all the time, he blends very well, and it's always fun trying to find him in a "Where's Waldo" kind of way.

Good luck.

-Don

Oh, one other option - I had an ich outbreak in my main display a while back, (conveniently right on the heels of a very disheartening tank crash - so no invertebrates at the time, well, other than aiptasia) and so I did a hypo-salinity treatment in the main display. Knocked the aiptasia down from a few hundred to maybe a dozen which is somewhat more manageable with a Joe's Juice type method.

 

[justforfun]

talk to crazyfish253 hes in enumclaw and he raies bergia i think he has about 100 ready

 

[BlennyBabe]

I have had great luck with taking the rock out of the water only half way. It will keep the rocks wet and preserve the coraline, but kills off the aiptasia. They sometimes even pop off their spot and you can scoop them out of the water while they are floating. I did this with about 100 lbs of rock and all of it looks fantastic. No die off.

 

[Holygral]

Majano Wand - Mojano & Aiptasia Zapper | TB Aquatics

The Aiptasia zapper works great, it would take you a while to play catch up and it is always an on going battle as for every one you see there are many more that you don't. With the Aiptasia zapper it just becomes part of your maintenance. They seem to be in short demand right now.

 

[reedman]

just get the Berghia from Barrier Reef. Worked great in my tank. Best money spent.

 

[LostCreekReefer]

My 270 gallon display was full of Aiptasia and one Copperband butterfly cleaned it up & keeps it that way. Nice fish, too! KevinD

 

[crazyfish253]

Fortunately I can rid your tank of aiptasia 99.9% there is only 2 ways of doing that. #1 is take all your rock out and boil it. #2 is berghia. Let me Name a few options that might work or make it worse. Kalc, Joe's juce, aiptasia x, boiling water, file fish, peppermint shrimp, pipe fish to name most commen. 50% chance once all the natural solutions are out of the tank there will be a return of aiptasia period. Chemical you must kill all of the plate it only takes 1 cell for aiptasia to re grow. They are A sexual, they are sexual, they can spore, they can do plate lassuration to breed. They get food from free floating particuls and photosynthesis.

 

[10gnano]

I recently had a bad aiptasia out break and I just took the rock out in sections and burnt the aiptasia off with a torch, then hit it with a brush. In a few day the rock will become alive again. I only have 25lbs of rock though, this may or may not work on a larger scale. Just putting it out on the table as an option.

 

[britany_shelton]

Awesome crazyfish. When can we arrange a deal? I grew up in Enumclaw and still live close by. I can meet you sometime. Do you text?

 

[stweten]

Had very good results with peppermints on multiple systems; make sure to get Lysmata wurdemanni though.

 

[mojoreef]

I put 40 peppermints in my tank and ave not seen one since, lol . I had a copperband and t pounded the aiptasia so I never saw any but when it passed on boy did they come back. I got another one but its a bug eater and hasnt touched them yet. The zapper sucks, you nail 20 ad 50 come back in its place. Go the bergia.

Mojo

 

[crazyfish253]

Congratulations you are on your way to 99.9% freedom. Payshunts will pay off in the long run ..please keep us updated

 

[britany_shelton]

I got a few Berghia from crazyfish. Can't wait to see some results although I know it will take some time. I put then in a critter keeper so that they can have a protected area free from any hungry mouths. I will keep you guys updated when I start seeing anything.

 

[DonW]

I put 40 peppermints in my tank and ave not seen one since, lol . I had a copperband and t pounded the aiptasia so I never saw any but when it passed on boy did they come back. I got another one but its a bug eater and hasnt touched them yet. The zapper sucks, you nail 20 ad 50 come back in its place. Go the bergia.

Mojo

Thats what is supposed to happen.

Don

 

[britany_shelton]

So for those that are wondering, things have gone GREAT!!! Far better than anybody would have expected. I recently bought some Monos (normally a brackish fish) from Sierra fish and pet as well as a algae blenny and a green filefish (a supposed aiptasia eater). I also bought a few Berghia Nudibranchs and isolated them and a few aiptasia covered rocks into a critter keeper. I figured this would help give the nudis an opportunity to breed and the larvae to grow before they ventured into the large 180 to finish their lives.
So anyways, I have been keeping an eye on the critter keeper to see if anything noticeable was happening. I did notice that the aiptasia was very tall and the smaller aiptasias seemed to be gone. I knew the process was going to be slow so I was not expecting too much.
To my surprise yesterday morning, I noticed I could barely see any aiptasia in the large tank, I thought this was very strange. I did not think that there was anyway the filefish could have eaten that many that fast. I did not understand it.
Per recommendations from a regular aiptasia killer, I also changed my light cycle and since I have no corals or anything, I was able to only have my lights on for a few hours everyday. I figured this must have been what had killed such large numbers of the anemones. However, the ones in the critter keeper were still fine. Hmm.
I decided to do an experiment and take one of the rocks out of the critter keeper to see if I could catch something having the anemones for a snack.
That is when I got the shock of my life. Within seconds, the monos, attacked the aiptasia. I mean attacked, swarmed, devoured, these anemones.
I have never heard of this. Crazy!!! It explains so much.
Now I guess time will tell if they keep the guys in check or get bored with em. I really want to get some good video of it. Such an incredible sight. But, believe it or not, Inneed some more aiptasia to get any. I am all OUT!!!
Anyways, wanted to let you guys know how things are going and tell you all that if you want me to take care of any rocks that are covered, let me know.

 

[crazyfish253]

That's great news, berghia are slow but effective