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Aiptasia controls (1 Viewer)

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csb123

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Mar 25, 2007
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Vadnais Heights, MN
Well, the inevitable happened and aiptasia has gotten into my tank. I've been nuking them with a laser and kalkwasser paste, but they keep popping up here and there. A particular problem is the back side of my rockscape, in my 300 DD tank, is hard to get to.

I have a flame hawk fish, so peppermint shrimp are out. I have multiple wrasses, so berghia nudis won't survive for long.

So, I was wondering the pros and cons of a Copperband butterfly vs one of the aiptasia eating file fish.

Any suggestions would be appreciated!

Sean
 
Have you seen your flame eat ornamental shrimp? I have a flame hawkfish and a peppermint shrimp and the flame doesn't bother the shrimp (for now). Could try taking a risk and buying a couple of shrimp, adding them at night, and see if they will eat the aiptasia at night.
 
I've had consistently good luck with peppermint shrimp keeping my DT aptasia free, or at least keeping the appearance of aptasia free.

I like having them in the tank regardless as part of the cleanup crew. It is key to ensure you do not get camel shrimp as they look very similar. But for the price of a handful of shrimp it is worth a shot.

I generally pick up 4-5 peppermints and within a week or so virtually all visible aptasia nems are "gone" (I'm sure they are still lurking)

Worth pointing out, I have had a peppermint go rogue before and attack a frogspawn and rock flower nem. But beyond that 1 problem shrimp which was removed, they have been good for me.
 
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I've NEVER had luck with Copperhead Butterfly fish or with Peppermint Shrimp in terms of Aiptasia Control. I've never tried a Filefish and Berghia Nudibranchs are expensive, somewhat difficult to find in stock, and they seem to take a long time before you notice any sort of decrease in Aiptasia population.

I wish there was some magic guaranteed reef safe anti-aiptasia solution. I'd rather have that instead of an Alkalinity monitor that seems to be the trend this year.
 
Matted filefish has been the best solution for me. Model citezen other than liking to munch new snails. She takes care of the smaller aptasia and I hit any bigger ones with Kalk.

Sent from my SM-T820 using Tapatalk
 
I had a copperband that ate frozen, worked wonders, wish i would still have him, sold him when i downsized tanks.
 
csb123 said:
Well, the inevitable happened and aiptasia has gotten into my tank. I've been nuking them with a laser and kalkwasser paste, but they keep popping up here and there. A particular problem is the back side of my rockscape, in my 300 DD tank, is hard to get to.

I have a flame hawk fish, so peppermint shrimp are out. I have multiple wrasses, so berghia nudis won't survive for long.

So, I was wondering the pros and cons of a Copperband butterfly vs one of the aiptasia eating file fish.

Any suggestions would be appreciated!

Sean
Click to expand...

What kind of wrasses do you have? My Melanarus (and even my Trevally) won't eat them. It may have helped that I put large nudis in there that were sufficiently fed, so they were filled with nematocysts.

I have had zero luck trying to acclimate CBBs. They haven't even made it out of QT.
 
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I have tried countless times with Copperband. Success getting them out of acclimation/quarnatine hasn't been good even when eating at the store and I think this is going to be the one. When I did finally get a good one, it constantly nipped at my cynarina corals and of course wouldn't touch aptasia. Unless one comes up for trade or sell from soneone getting out of the hobby, I'm done trying.

Aptasia paste works well enough for me to keep under control but never eradicate. But I don't have a 300DD where reaching could be a challenge either.
 
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This fight can become a hobby within the saltwater hobby, fighting aiptasia. Good luck!

If the CBB doesn't work out it might be worth revisiting berghia nudis. They were ultimately the only thing that worked for me, and my six line wrasse was in the tank with them the whole time.

The nudis were put in shortly after one of the expos. It was over a month later, but one day I was looking at the rocks and was shocked to suddenly notice every aiptasia was gone. Never saw the nudis since the day they went in the tank, but they worked!
 
I bought a CBB a few months ago at New Wave... it took him some time, but he has cleared my 120 of aptasia.
But they still in my sump and overflow, so suppose I should get some Peppermint Shrimps for those areas.
 
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