Zoa frag vs Aiptasia :(

I have a frag of green zoas and tonight I pulled out the flashlight to look at things and it has about 5 aiptasia in random places. The location of them makes it hard to put anything on them without getting it on my zoas. Is there anything I can do that won't cause any harm to my zoa? It's about 15 polyps or so and I could probably frag half of them off the aiptasia rock, but I'd feel pretty guilty about tossing some of my corals....:-/

 

I'm in the same boat as you...following along for some experience, hopefully...

 

Shut down all your pumps & inject the Aiptasia with Aiptasia X, let it sit for 10min, them start up your pumps again.. This will minimize the amount of damage to your zoas..

 

This is what I do.

If you can remove the piece from the tank. Allow all the polyps to retract, and try and get a good idea where the aiptasia are. Dry the piece a little to prevent run off. Put a small dab of kalk paste on the aiptasia while trying as much as you can to avoid getting any on the zoanthids, let pieces sit out of water for 5-10 minutes, rinse in SW. Return to tank and repeat as needed.

Zoanthids are sometimes shipped dry and in the wild they are exposed to air at low tide for long periods. The air will not hurt the zoanthids, but the kalk paste if it gets on them will really make them mad for awhile.

 

Same thing

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I bought some shirmps to see what happens.

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thanks all

 

Luckily, Zoas seem to be much more tolerant of Aptaisia X, Joe's Juice etc... I have squirted it right into a colony a number of times and maybe only lost a polyp or two. 100% mortality for the aptaisia though.

 

It's a 50-50 shot. Peppermint shrimp will only eat it as a last resort.

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Also if the aiptasia is too big, the shrimp won't touch it.

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