New to Aiptasia

the only downside is stealing food when spot feeding corals. Aiptasia is the last thing they will eat, not the first thing. If they have another food source it usually won't go after aiptasia.

 

And eating corals. I've never seen this and had success with them, however, some people have informed me that the do eat corals occasionally. To a peppermint shrimp, I guess a coral isn't much different than an aptaisa. Also, as rc_mcwaters3 said, they are hit or miss. IME, I've found you need a number of them to drive competition. Although, occasional people report a single shrimp will work. They can be a pain though, I have one in my current tank that doesn't touch aptaisia, whenever I try to feed my anemone though, he is right there trying to steal the food LOL.

IMHO, I've been fighting aptaisia for many, many years. You can get rid of them, but you'll add something and re-introduce them. Joes juice, or some equivalent, kalk paste etc... is the most effective treatment. You just need to repeat, you can't assume they died the first shot.

 

I want to add a disclaimer to this comment for the sole reason that I have never read anything along these lines or even fully believe this solution is possible:

I had some live rock/live sand given to me by the person I bought my tank from. Noticed a few aiptasia and I resorted to removing the rock and cutting/swabbing/black magic'ing it off the rock while it was out of the tank to help curb the potential for further spread. With moderate success, I decided to leave it alone for the time being as I grew weary of upsetting the environment in my tank. Last week, I bought 2 hermit crabs from Petco to get a head start on the little bit of detritus I had popping up.

To get to the point, I left the tank alone for the weekend (out of town) and when I came back, the 2 bits of aipstasia I had mentally noted before I left, were gone. Not a single trace of them. On the downside, I don't notice as many feather dusters so I don't know if my guys got hungry and mowed them down on a whim or if a chemical swing killed some of it off. Unlikely, but then again, so is the situation.

 

I have aiptasia Everwhere too! I treated it with the X and they came back bigger. I am going to treat again today after reading this but I also bought 4 Peppermint shrimp and they haven't left their hiding places under the rocks yet. Its been 4 days, shouldn't they be out by now? They better get eatin'! I also read that covering their hole with marine epoxy does the trick as well.

 

I have used boiling water in a syringe and it kills them. But it doesnt insure me that they won't spread from melting away, and leaving their little demon seed children behind. I have used aiptasia-x with success. It's all about how you do it.

1. Turn off all pumps
2. prepare your syringe and locate the best angle of attack
3. slowly approach the enemy to not startle it
4. you want to aim for the center(mouth) and just barely touch it
5. it should react by closing its tentacles on it like any other prey
6. Then and only then, you plunge the syringe(slowly)
7. Repeat the next day if needed

 

sometimes the peppermint shrimp will just go after the smaller aiptasia and leave the larger ones alone. Like someone else said, the aiptasia is not their food of choice but will eat them if there is nothing else.

 

Whenever I see any Aiptasias in my tanks, I inject Tropic Marin Elimi-Aiptas directly into the stalk as opposed to into the mouth. I find that the product has a better kill rate when injected into the stalk rather than the mouth and it has worked well for me.

 

these little creatures are the only thing that has made me think about getting out of this hobby, my problem was i could'nt reach many of mine. pepermint shrimp, have been my salvation, there the best price glass aneome killers in the trade. the con to them is fan tube worms they will eat them and feather dusters if they get a chance.where some fall short on them, they buy one or two, the more you buy the better odds that they will eat them. James