Urgent Is this Aiptasia!?

I added some live rock rubble from a LFS, I hopes of growing coralline algae. Today it looks like I've got some Aiptasia. See photo.

Should I remove the rock, or is it too late? If it's too late and my tank I'd "contaminated" already how do j get rid of it, peppermint shrimp?

FYI, the tank just cycled and the only live stock are 6 dwarf hermits.


DarkHorseMBA
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yup,boil a cup of tank water in the nuker and use a syringe to kill it before it takes off.

 

Yes you gotta get rid of that, and on top of all aiptasia it has caulpera on it and you do not want that.

 

+1 on the above 2 posts

grape calerpa is as much if not more of a pain, than aiptasia are
it certainly takes over at a faster rate IME

Boiling the rock will work, leave it in the sun or outside to dry for a couple of weeks
after the boiling and then add back as dry rock if you need the rock

Steve

 

Well the guy at the LFS told me the Caulerpa was a good thing. :-(. I found more Aiptasia on the the other pieces of rock I bought. The rubble was in there to help seed the tank, so nuking them would defeat the purpose. There were only 3 pieces so I took them out and tossed them. Going to have to find another way to seed my tank with coralline.

Thanks for the advice, you guys rock!

 

You can try peppermint shrimp,they will usually clean up the aiptasia,but they are hit or miss,some won't touch it,so i would suggest a few.Or you can inject it with the hot water,lemon juice,or joes juice,you can also try aiptasiaX(never tried it,but heard many say it work ok)Or cover the aip with kalk paste.The caulerpa is a bad double edged sword,it's a good macro for removal of nutrients,but spreads quickly and can get out of hand fast from what i've read on it.

 

caulerpa, isnt neccesarily "bad" just grows quickly. if you wanna try berghia nudibranches they are the best IMO, they die when all the aiptasia is eaten, but depending on the tank size <5 shouldnt have any die off effects

 

Why in the world would you buy something to die in your tank ? When you can use kalk or other methods.

A lot of reefer would disagree with you regarding the caulpera. It can go sexual and crash a system, it secrets a toxin that is harmful to sps and it is very invasive and hard to get rid of once it takes hold.

 

Can I get some more info on the toxin like a link or something.
I added some caluerpa until I can find some cheato but I might take it out if its too bad.

 

Yes just google caulerpa taxfolia toxins.

I used to love the stuff but my sps never really did great and I could not find a cause. Once I removed the caulerpa the sps took a turn for the better.