2 gallon QT for dealing with Aiptasia

[awong]

My 50G have some Aiptasia on some of coral rocks so I decided to put my pico tank to a good use. I am so done with fighting aiptasia with aiptasia x, it only making matter worse. I decided to use Pico tank as qt and I have purchased three peppermint shrimps for the Pico tank. I am happy to share my experience.. the peppermint shrimps did a great job of getting rid of the aiptasia for me. The pictures are after I peppermint did it's job. There still one or two aiptasia left on the rock.

 

[lmm1967]

the right peppermint shrimp will do wonders.

I have a single one in our 180 - and other than a couple big aiptasia I'm afraid to touch and a few in the overflow - this one shrimp keeps our entire 180 mostly clear.

It took many attempts to get one this capable and it took him a solid 3 months to really get the tank to the point where they aren't a lot of them.

 

[awong]

first few attempts getting the shrimp to eat Aiptasia was a failure for me because lfs feed their shrimp with frozen food/pallet. This time I isolated these three shrimp in QT that have nothing but corals and aiptasia and I don't feed them a couple of days then I started notice the shrimp attacking the Aiptasia. I am so glad that I decided to take this approach training the shrimp.

 

[awong]

Finally I am able to capture when shrimps attacked Aiptasia.
shrimps attacked Aiptasia

 

[civics14]

Finally I am able to capture when shrimps attacked Aiptasia.
shrimps attacked Aiptasia

That was very satisfying to watch.

 

[jcook54]

That is an outstanding idea. Forcing them to revert to a more natural food source so they'll do there jobs in the tank. I get a kick out of watching them "beg" for frozen food when I feed it that I end us shooting myself in the foot by feeding them.

I've always said (and experienced) that peppermint shrimp are hit and miss. I wonder if that's my own fault for feeding the little buggers. Perhaps they are all voracious consumers of aptasia and I just force them off their natural diet.

 

[Steve Burton]

That is an outstanding idea. Forcing them to revert to a more natural food source so they'll do there jobs in the tank. I get a kick out of watching them "beg" for frozen food when I feed it that I end us shooting myself in the foot by feeding them.

I've always said (and experienced) that peppermint shrimp are hit and miss. I wonder if that's my own fault for feeding the little buggers. Perhaps they are all voracious consumers of aptasia and I just force them off their natural diet.

Very good point, I've had great success with peppermint shrimp and filefish both in tanks without fish, that do not get fed. My filefish quit eating aiptasia, and it took a while for him to start again when I transferred him to a temporary tank without fish. He's back in the regular tank now and again isn't touching the stuff.

 

[gill]

Finally I am able to capture when shrimps attacked Aiptasia.
shrimps attacked Aiptasia

That video should be nominated for an Oscar! IT has drama, suspense, and some great shots of exploding pieces of aiptasia.

 

[gill]

My two cents: I tried everything for aiptasia (peppermint shrimp, aiptasia x, physical removal), but my 200 gallon custom is unusually tall (30 inches) and I have two 150 pound constructed pieces of rock that cannot be moved. So they propagated all over where I could not reach them. Shrimp never took care of it, and they slowly got picked off by my wrasses.

The solution: a single filefish. Utterly destroyed 100s of them in 2 weeks. Note, I don't have zoas and things that might temp him, and so far he has left my sps alone. I keep him well fed and he is a model citizen.