kill aptasia

[fishgardener]

I have some live rock with several aptasias on it. They are presently in a quarintine tank. How do I kill them without hurting the zoas that are nearby?:shout: Help!!!

Sheryle

 

[FutureInterest]

Hey sheryle, a simple hypodermic needle would work. I can bring you one to the fragswap if you need. You can fill the needle with lemon juice, boiling hot water, liquid calcium, or kalkwasser. You inject the lil things with the needle and shoot em up. Kills them quick.

In the alternative you can buy a joe's juice kit from any LFS and that'll work as well.

 

[reefjunkee]

Joes Juice.Works great.You just use a syringe and squirt a little into the mouth of each aptasia and it kills it.Just make sure You dont squirt any into the mouths of any other corals.It will kill zoas and others if squirted directly into them from what I hear.I have some anthelia that is getting out of hand and though I would try and use it to kill it.havent tried it yet but thought I would this weekend.Oh....peppermint shrimp will eat them also.But if You have a lot of them I would go with the Joes Juice.Good Luck.

 

[reefjunkee]

Wow...You both beat Me to the enter key.

 

[slayer]

berghia nudibranch - the only thing to permanantly take care of them. but you have to have enough aiptasia in the tank to keep them alive while they do their job.. over the years its the only thing i found to keep them gone,, i can catch one if you like out of my tank and bring one for you to the meeting, but only if you have enough to keep him alive, or could pass onto someone else, once hes done his job...

 

[jaandgc]

Take the rock out, put some kalk directly on the aiptasia wait 5 min. put it back in. Now you do have to be careful not to get the kalk on other corals which usually is not that hard, and if it is a small body of water you have to watch your ph in the tank to make sure it does not go to high.

 

[fishgardener]

This may sound dumb, but what is a berghia nudibranch? I thought nudibranches were bad? There are at least 15 aptasia- some small, medium and one very large, so there is plenty to eat.
Sheryle

 

[fishgardener]

Barbara,
Yes, lets carpool to the meeting
PM sent

 

[fishgardener]

Thank you all for the advice. I'm going to try the bioling water first on one of the little critters and see what happens. It seems the least harmful to the tank in general. That berghia nudibranch seems very interesting-there is just so much to learn!
:thanks:
Sheryle

 

[fishgardener]

slayer77;133389 wrote: berghia nudibranch - the only thing to permanantly take care of them. but you have to have enough aiptasia in the tank to keep them alive while they do their job.. over the years its the only thing i found to keep them gone,, i can catch one if you like out of my tank and bring one for you to the meeting, but only if you have enough to keep him alive, or could pass onto someone else, once hes done his job...

I tried the boiling water. Did not appear to do them much harm. I would love to have one of those berghia nudibranch. I looked them up. They sound like great little guys. It will go into a quarentine tank with the aiptasia infected rock. There are no fish in the tank so it should have a happy well fed life since there are many, many aptasia. I will pass him on to someone else in need when he's eaten his fill in my tank. I'll be at the meeting on Tuesday, can I get one then? http://www.atlantareefclub.org/forums/images/icons/icon7.gif" alt="" />
Sheryle

 

[saltwater junky]

be careful not to het the boiling water on the zoos as it will release a palytoxin which is very nasyty stuff.

 

[seedless reefer]

Joes juice will nuke em but sooner or later they will come back....same with the other fixes but if you are diligent it will control them.

I had a major outbreak and put in a bunch of peppermint shrimp and aiptasia dissapeared in a day or two.

 

[lorenk]

hit them with some joe's juice or better yet (cheaper) some kalkwasser mixed with water to a paster and use a syringe. As the other loren said, they'll likely come back so follow that up with peppermints.

I had a horrible case in my tank and that's how I dealt with them successfully. Plus now I have some shrimp which are fun to watch when they are out.