Aptasia

[brian313313]

I have a reef aquarium that has been set up for about 6 months. I noticed some small Aptasia. I have never put live rock in there...just frags. My rock came from the store as dry rock. I must have picked up some spores because none of the frags have it. Anyone seen this before? It's still small so I think I'll be adding a Peppermint Shrimp.

 

[jrhunter0000]

Try and find wild peppermint shrimp. Not all peppermint shrimp will eat them.

 

[civics14]

I can't have peppermint shrimps because my wrasses, but before I was smothering them with kalk mix, but at one point, I over did it and it dripped down and landed on some coral and burned the crap out of it. So, this past week I ordered some Aiptasia X from Amazon and applied it to the 4 I saw and it killed them pretty fast. Not sure if I have any more as of yet, but I'll report back in a few weeks.

 

[camellia]

Peppermint shrimp from "trusted" LFS sponsor!

I remove all frags from plugs then they go into QT for 2 to 3 weeks for observation.

 

[brian313313]

I bought a Peppermint Shrimp yesterday from a trusted LFS. I've also used Aptasia X successfully in the past. That was my first encounter with Aptasia and I thought I got this really cool thing on my live rock and was even target feeding it. That one got to be big and then I did my research and found out I had a pest. It never had babies which was a surprise. Another time I took the rock out and blow-torched it. That worked well. I killed everything in the area but only one rock was affected so it didn't affect the tank much. If the PS doesn't do the job I'll probably do the blow-torch since it's all in a 1" area right now.

Both other times it came on live rock. Nowadays I buy mostly dead rock and add a few closely inspected pieces of live-rock. This tank was originally going to be FOWLR so I didn't put any actual live rock in it. Then since my fish were reef-safe I added some frags...

 

[recompyle]

I had my first aiptasia encounter the other day that I found hitchhiking on a rock with some polyps that I bought. I had a lot of success using a clean/new turkey baster that I slid some silicon air line tubing on to the tip (about 18"). Boiled a container of RODI (or distilled) water in the microwave. Sucked up some of the water in the tube/baster, pointed the end of the hose at the aiptasia and blasted it several times until it shriveled up and popped off the rock. Found what was left of it floating around the tank and caught it with a net. Nothing else in the tank was impacted, not even the polyps right above the crack where the aiptasia was hiding.

 

[gclackum]

I had three fine specimens of Aptasia, all destroyed by peppermints. I bought 6 at a LFS. Did the trick

 

[jennm]

brian313313;1079397 wrote: That was my first encounter with Aptasia and I thought I got this really cool thing on my live rock and was even target feeding it. That one got to be big and then I did my research and found out I had a pest.

I could have written that Back when I first moved to this area in 2000, I fired up my tank and picked out a nice piece of LR at a "trusted LFS" (same store still exists today but 2 owners later...) I didn't know what the Aiptasia was, but was excited about this little hitch-hiker anemone. (DOH!) The clerk that sold it to me knew full well what it was. In fact, these days he's a big name in hobbyist blog circles. I fed it, and it grew, and one day it popped its cap off as I was watching it. I thought it odd so I scooped the cap into a cup and it continued to live, and over the next few days a new column began to grow, and the column left in the tank began to grow new tentacles.

That's when I did my research and learned I had a flippin' pest.

Went to a MORE trusted LFS of the day and got a Peppermint. Took the shrimp about a week to find the Aiptasia but once he did, he ate it up. In the interim I'd flushed the cap which I'd still had in a cup.

There are several ways to get rid of them but keeping Peppermints, when practical, will help keep them from coming back as they have the tiny pincers that can nab them when they are tiny.

Jenn

 

[brian313313]

Just a couple days later and I don't see any trace of the Aptasia. Yay for the Peppermint Shrimp. He liked it. I also have a straw/feather duster that came from nowhere. It's on one of the same base rocks. It's pretty cool so I hope that's not a pest too.