Aptasia Gone Wild

[anthony]

Any suggestions on how to get rid of them ? I've tried Aptasia x, my own concoction of pickling lime,majano wand. Aptasia eating file fish( which only at flakes. 2nd one that did this) every thing I've tried has only made it worse.. I need to rent a fish that eats them...or something.

 

[dball711]

Have you tried putting several peppermints in there?

 

[jcook54]

Peppermint shrimp work really well. I've even had one particular peppermint shrimp that ate hydroids. I've also found AptasiaX (Red Sea) to be my favorite aptasia destroying formula. I mix kalk paste to knock back blue clove polyps and will use it on aptasia if I see if but now that I have a peppermint shrimp, I don't see any.

On a side note, there was someone looking for aptasia on here a week or two ago. Something to do with berghia nudis.

 

[enderg60]

Aptasia is like herpes, once you got it its never going away. You can treat it periodically but there is no cure.

Peppermints keep them at bay, but only eat smaller ones so you will still have to take care of the larger ones manually. I prefer a kalk paste made of 50/50 kalk powder and water. Its the same as every aptasia killer on the market but cheaper and stronger. Turn all pumps off then use a syringe to dump it right on the mouth, then wait till they retract and cover them with it. If you can a cap of epoxy is a good idea. I usually wait about 3-4 hours then turn the pumps back on. Just dont get it on corals.

I also got myself a 3 watt laser to burn the ones I couldnt reach. It works but not great and its time consuming at about 1-4 minutes per aptasia.

 

[Rickdareefa]

If aptasia is herpes then vermited snails are syphilis

 

[Dmitri]

Get an aptasia eating filefish

ORA® Captive-Bred Aiptasia Eating Filefish: Saltwater Aquarium Fish for Marine Aquariums

m.liveaquaria.com

 

[Dmitri]

I see I didn’t fully read your post, the trick that worked for me was not to feed filefish for couple days.
It started to get taste for aiptasia and then month later all were gone

 

[snowmansnow]

So the only thing I’ve found to actually work are peppermint shrimp. How big is your tank?
Mine is a shallow 80 gallon and I use 8 shrimp. Yes it seems like a lot but it works


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[anthony]

Yes I'm not sure how to make tilefish not eat when I'm feeding other fish. Peppermint shrimp seem to disappear suspiciously around my 6 line wrasse

 

[Ga_reefer91]

There is a post in the wanted section another memebr is actuslly looking for aptasia. Maybe he can come help you out.

 

[enderg60]

Dont bother with a filefish. I got two, they ate a few aptasia but mostly loved eating my xenia, star polyps and picking at leathers.

The best solutions you have are peppermint shrimp along with manually killing the large ones every so often.

The only other way is to remove all corals and fish and bleach your rocks, which BTW is what Im doing during my move.

 

[hubble]

Try a copperband butterfly

 

[Tjb61885]

Copperband works well with peppermint shrimp. Just keep an eye out on your coral if you add a copperbrand