I just received my Berghia verrucicornis

[danmhippo]

It is pethetic! I ordered 5 of them hoping to drop into my tank and watch them munching away my refugium-full of aiptasia. Instead, I am looking into a bag of water.....no, not quite just water, there are a couple of white dots. Each white dots is no more than 1/4 inch long. Even if I added all 5 dots together, it doesn't add up to an inch long.

Without opening up the bag, I quickly read the invoice ---- Qty 5, (TR) Aiptasia Eating Nudis, $124.95. OMG, I just spent $125 on 5 little white dots? Why aren't reefers out there warning about the size of the Berghia for those that haven't bought them??? No wonder people claims that they added the nudis and never to be seen again.

I quickly scan over the guide that comes with the nudis,

"Adding nudibranches smaller than half an inch to your tank is not recommended!.......recommends that you keep your Berghia, regardless of their size, in a Mason jar WITH ABSOLUTELY NO ROCKS for at least a couple of days.......Even breeder size B. verrucicornis are small. They are also nocturnal and well camouflaged, making them very difficult to keep track of in even the smallest aquarium......

Instruction for placing Berghia in the Aquarium:
1). Nudis should not be added to a reef tank until they are over half an inch in length. Even at that size, butterflies and peppermint shrimp may be able to eat them. (Danmhippo: I am sure everything in the tank will too)
2). Berghia are nocturnal and prefer subdued flow......Powerheads eat nudibranchs.
3). Be careful not to drop your nudis on Aiptasia when adding them to your tank. When given a chance, AIPTASIA EAT BERGHIA!! The nudis make their living by sneaking up on their prey. Be gentle."

The guide also goes about emphasizing the best place to hold Berghia to be the mason jar, and we have to feed them by moving aiptasia to the jar to feed, and not to add "much" slime to the jar as that will interfere with water quality......

Now I know why we don't hear reefers telling their success stories of controlling the aiptasia with Berghia. Because there are too many things that will eat Berghia, including the aiptasia themselves! If I can remove the Berghia by hand and move them to a jar to be fed, I wouldn't be buying these nudis in the first place. I will simply toss away the removed aiptasia into the trash can!

Now I have to think about what am I going to do with this $125 bag of water?

 

[ecoman001]

Were did you buy these little nudis

 

[danmhippo]

You are right, Now if I had known all the above, I would not have spent the $$ on them. BUT FELLOW REEFERS THAT HAD THEM BEFORE NEVER SAID A WORD!!!

There aren't many known predators out there for the Aiptasia, the only known ones that prey on them are the butterfly (not reef safe), Peppermint shrimps (aiptasia is not the primary diet, they will go for frozen food first), and this nudibranch.

I also have a green filefish that were supposed to eat aiptasia, but it has been getting much fatter in my tank on frozen mysis and live ghost shrimps. Besides, where I have the aiptasia the most is in the refugium. The filefish won't fit in there with the overgrown caulerpa.

[ April 26, 2002: Message edited by: danmhippo ]</p>

 

[danmhippo]

Kevin,

No, I haven't forgot about you!

Before I started this thead, you are the only person I know of had success with them in the tank. I got mine from IA as well, and Morgan of IA recommended I get more than 2. I remember your stories as well, that's why I decided to order from IA instead of others out there that claims they can sell for 1/2 the price.

Your first stock received is 3/8 inch, but mine (I just remeasured them) is just about 1/8 inch. Not that size matter in price, but this small can really "disappear" in the tank!!!

What I will do now is find a jar to keep 2 and put 3 into the refugium and hope they don't get eaten by amphipods and God knows whatelse is in my refugium. I am keeping my fingers crossed.

As a side note, My main tank is devoid of aiptasia where as the refugium is full of them. I wonder why?? I do have peppermint shrimp in both (5 in main and 3 in refugium), so the peppermint shrimp shouldn't be the reason. The only livestock difference between the 2 location is the 2 file fish in the main tank. Could that really be the aiptasia eating machine? I cannot confirm that as the only thing I observed them eat is the ghost shrimps, mysis, flakes, and frozen cubes.

What I have in the main but not in the refugium is seahorses, pipefish, 4 sailfin molly, chevron tang, a pair of apogon leptacanthus, a Pseudochromis porphyreus, a forktail blenny Meicanthus atrodarsalis , niger trigger, and 2 filefish, one I believe is Paramonacanthus japonicus, and the other possibly Cantherhines verrucundus. The latter by the way was sold under "green filefish". My suspicion is on the green filefish.

 

[Anemone]

Jimmy - don't knock it 'til you try it!

My first bout with aiptasia occurred in my 80 gallon tank. I had 30-40 larger aips and probably twice as many smaller ones. I bought 2 berghia from IA, and contrary to instructions, put both 3/8" berghias into my 80 gallon tank.

Then, I never saw them again..... Well, not actually true - I put them in at the end of September, and even though I am very vigilant with a flashlight, I never saw one until after Christmas. Hard to tell if I was losing any aiptasia during this time, as the aips have a tendency to move around and multiply (don't we know that!!).

The one I saw was almost an inch long! I was happy - By the middle of October I figured I had just wasted my money. Now at least I knew I still had part of what I bought.

Two weeks later I saw a smaller berghia in my refugium. The only way into my refugium was through a Rio 1700 (since changed to a Sen 900), so I found that curious. This berghia was actually in the process of eating an aiptasia that was on the side glass of the refugium, so that was very cool to watch (took about 2 hours to completely consume a small-medium aiptasia).

In the next several weeks, I started seeing a lot of berghia, or varying sizes in my tank. In the next six months, I sold or traded away 40-50 berghia, and still had quite a few in my tank.

My aiptasia were completely wiped out within a month of my seeing the berghia in the refugium, so I was in the unique position of visiting every LFS within a 60 mile radius trying to buy aiptasia-rock. During this period I bought well over 1,000 aiptasia and imported them into my tank (big mistake, as you'll see below).

In August, my berghia population abruptly crashed. I have no idea why, but I still had a few aiptasia here and there.

Fast forward a year to last August, and my tank is back to several hundred aiptasia. Stoney corals (frags primarily) are being killed by aiptasia, and I'm feeling like I need to do something once again. I buy a couple of berghia from IA again, but due to FedEx problems, they arrived dead. Ordered a couple more, which appeared sluggish, but disappeared to never be seen again (for real this time). After a couple of months, I bought 4 more from a local breeder. They were around, but I didn't see any breeding.

I bought 6 more from the local breeder in November/December. I tried raising them in a little six gallon eclipse, without success (lots of egg masses, but I couldn't get any juveniles - I did see large amphipods eating the eggs, so this might have been the problem). I put 8 berghia into the 6 gallon, but was only able to find 6 to put back into the main display tank (when I gave up the attempt to breed them in the smaller tank).

During this time I also started kalking the aips I could get to. Two nights ago I managed to locate 4 berghia in my 80, so I know they're still in there. I'm down to about 30 aiptasia left, and if I get rid of these, I will not import more to keep my berghia fed (see, I can learn!).

I have no idea why my first two berghia reproduced so successfully, and my more recent purchases haven't. I have replaced the two large Rios (a 1700 and a 2500) that provided water movement (surge system and a seaswirl) with a Sen 700 and a Sen 900, so perhaps the new pumps are less veliger (berghia juvenile form) "friendly." Or, perhaps my tank developed some berghia predator during my first berghia explosion, and some of those predators still exist within my system, making starting a new berghia population more difficult. Who knows?

Anyways, just wanted to say, berghia can be very effective against aiptasia, even for those of us who were "sure" we wasted our money.

Kevin

[ April 26, 2002: Message edited by: Anemone ]</p>

 

[SPC]

Posted by Dan:
BUT FELLOW REEFERS THAT HAD THEM BEFORE NEVER SAID A WORD!!!

-I never said anything because I never used them before. What I have read on the various boards is what you have posted, most say "save your money."

Sorry.
Steve

 

[Lynn]

LOL!!! sorry Hippo, but the way you described "the white dots" was just too funny. Sorry for you...but at least this way I'll never do the same!!LOL
have a great day!
p.s. those LFS sure seem like their making a killing!! hey?

 

[Chucker]

Maybe you should have checked the library first

http://www.reefs.org/library/article/Inland_Aquatics_Aiptasia_Control.html

 

[danmhippo]

LOL......what we use to preach the new to the board is coming back to haunt us.....

That is the exact same instruction that came with the Berghia I received from IA. However, even if I read the instruction first, I might still decide to get them to try.........Oh well...

I have 3 connecting tanks.
1. Main tank -- aptasia free and there are 3-5 large pappermint shrimps.
2. 45G refugium -- used to have lots and lots of big aiptasia, but is not aiptasia free. There are 3 large and fat peppermint shrimps.
4. 30G refugium in partition of sump -- Full of aiptasia. I have placed 3 peppermint shrimps there before but I just checked yesterday, it's all gone??? I wonder could have them wondered too close to the return pump? Well, I am going to stick with peppermint shrimps for now to try rid the remaining aiptasia out.

The 5 Berghia I received, I placed them into a empty bare tank. It's a cleaned out eclipe 3. There is nothing in the tank with 2 aiptasia I placed in there. I placed the 5 Berghia in there last Friday and by Monday, there are no trace of any Berghia. The water is half full, so there is no chance it will crawl out.

I am stumped.

I am calling it quit on the Berghia. I placed a small peppermint in the eclipse 3 and hoping at least I can get to see the aiptasia gets eaten.

 

[Tangy1]

Last summer I bought 2 of these guys. They were around 1/4" when I got them. I saw one start munching aiptasia immediately. I never saw the other one land. 2 months went by before I finally saw one again. It was about 1/2" and it looked pretty cool. It had grown plumper and the gills were all bright white against its brownish body. 2 more months went by and I saw it on the glass at least 1" long. After that I ran into some tank problems and never saw it again.

It must have been eating up a storm to have grown that large. But I never saw a dent in my aiptasia population. They must not be that tastey because my peppermint shrimp didnt like them either.

 

[danmhippo]

Follow up on the peppermint shrimp in the bare tank. Today I checked the eclipse tank, the aiptasia is all gone!! I placed another aiptasia in the tank today (and oh boy, don't I have those!!

). I will try and see how fast he can mow that one down.

Next I will try another aiptasia and some flake food on the side, and see which one he likes better. However, I kinda knew the answer already.

 

[Anonymous]

I bought 3 from IA- I didn't follow the instructions and just put them in the tank- I couldn't get any small rocks with aiptasia to feed them. Anyway, I only saw one of them once after that, and it had grown quite large. The aiptasia population disappeared, although very slowly at first, never to return.