Aiptasia Removal

[Keith A]

Any hints on how to remove those bastard nuisance anenomes from my 75 gallon reef?

I have bubble tip anenomes, so Peppermint shrimp are out of the question..

I do use calcium to explode the little mothers :twisted: , but just can't seem to keep up..

Anyone have any luck with Copperband Butterflies? I hear they are suppose to eat the Aiptasia, but also have heard they'll go after my coral.

What about specialized nudiabranchs?

Thanks..

 

[skimmer1]

I have bubble tips as well and have had no problems with pep shrimp. A couple months ago I had a bad outbreak of aiptasia and the shrimp took care of every last one in three weeks. No harm to the bubble.

 

[texman]

I have also got some aptasia. I tried the specialized nudibranchs, however they disappeared in the tank and did not eat the aptasia. I have a bunch of breeding peppermint shrimp in my refugium, and am able to catch them locally by the hundreds. I have 5 pseudochromis and a couple of wrasses as well as a small eel in my tank. They eat the peppermint shrimp as fast as I can put them in. I recently introduced a copper banded butterfly which ate all the small aptasia, but has not touched the larger ones - I do think that it controls the population significantly though. I have been able to feed the butterfly on small clams (grocery store) when he/she does not have anything elso to eat. The butterfly has not touched any of my corals as far as I can tell. He did polish off all the tube worms that were in my tank (100's, ?1000's) So far, I am happy with the butterfly.

 

[theroryshow]

i work at a saltwater fish store and i have had customers that say if you get a juvinile copperband and raise it in you're reef they won't bother corals. It might be worth a try. Definetly don't throw an adult in there though.

 

[Chucker]

:idea: Never hurts to check old threads with the Search feature first, or taking a look at the FAQ at the top of this forum.

 

[Anonymous]

I am starting to have an Aiptasia problem myself. I wouldn't mind having just a couple around, but I don't want it to get out of control.

I did have a related question, however. If I get a Clarkii clownfish, is it possible that he would mistaken an Aiptasia for a hosting anemone, and if he did by some freak of nature, would it hurt him?

 

[theroryshow]

You're clown shouldn't mistake the aiptasia for another anemone and it shouldn't kill him. However, flower anemones will kill a clown so don't stick any of those in there

 

[Mike02]

i've used peppermint shrimp (one shrimp) that ate all the aptasia in the tank with zeal. i read that the larger ones are more likely to eat aiptasia so when i went to the LFS, i took the biggest one they had. i saw the shrimp pounce on some of them. it was sorta like watching an african cichlid i had go after live flies that i put on the water surface. that cichlid went crazy over flies.

 

[Superbroker]

I have not had much luck with peppermints and aptasia....however you spell it. I have 2 peppermints in my 55, and they don't seem to care too much for the stuff. I wish they did, I'm getting a load of them now, so I'm goign to have to find an alternative solution. I used the calcium before, but be careful, as it's not good to use too much of it to kill an abundance of the bastards.