[jason@jasonsaquatics]

Aiptasia,
A hardy and not to easy to get rid of anemone.
How many times have you looked at an Aiptasia,Or glass anemone and told yourself,i will get rid of tomorrow .Well dont,once the Aiptasia gets out of hand there a nighmare.

Theres are a few ways to get rid of them ,One is to use chemicals like calcium,joes juice,Tropic marin aiptasia killer ,hot water ,high salt water levels in a sringe.
Do they work or dont they ,well i cant answer that one .
I have used hot water and i did a few but some got by .
Another way to help loose the pest anemone is to use mothernature itself,
your livestock .
You have the pepermint shrimp but they can get used to the foods you feed the tank and leave the aiptasia alown .Then there is the copperband butterfly a lovely fish but can be quite hard to keep .Also the raccoon butterfly will eat aptasia but will also graze on your corals and thats a no no .A very good aiptasia killer is the hermit crab (RED LEG) ,also grazing on pest algaes.One of the best so im told is the bergia nudibranch but prove hard to get ,and once they have eaten the aiptasia they die :cry:

There is another way to rid them of your tank and thats manually .But always remember that if you dont get it all it will regrow into another or even a few .
They are sexual and asexual and even the small pieces can regrow into a little colony
We read that a large aiptasia can produce 10 small aptasias a day .
You can slow them down by reducing your phosphates and nitrates but it wont eliminate them just slow there growth down .

So remember if you have one or two dont leave them ,deal with them as soon as or you might regret it


Just_me

[SLAPPY]

I have a tiny one in my tank, in between a rock crevice so I will have to milliput him.

Been keeping marines for 2 years and this is the second aiptasia that I ever had. :cry:

[jason@jasonsaquatics]

Your lucky this guy came to us this week and he has an epidemic in his tank .He strted with a few and now he has Hundreds of them.

There not to be taken lightly ,deal with them as soon as you can

just_me

[SLAPPY]

Yeah but a blob of milliput looks stupid with nothing on it. Looks like a trip to Jason's is in order

[karens roses]

They can be a real pain for sure, I had one pop up yesterday, hidden among the brown polps.
He thought I wouldnt notice him I think since he blended in so well.
I use boiling water to get rid of them I take a syringe and put boiling water in it, then put the point of it right into the space where the aptasia is. Fill it with the boiling water and it boils them enough to make them come appart.
Works great.

[jason@jasonsaquatics]

Same way i have in the past karen.

If anyone has other ways to eliminate them please post them

just_me

[karens roses]

I have used Joe's Juice but it turns out its the same as Kalk mixed with water. So I made my own.
Make it into a slight pase but watery enough to get it thru a syringe.
Then put a drop on each aptasia.
But I have found it does not always kill them if I don't get enough on them to smother them.
So I went with the boiling water, it's instant and doesnt add anything to the water as Kalk paste does.
Short of a stick of dynomite , boiling water to them works best for me.

[Mike4271]

What the heck was the word the censor picked up, it can't be that bad, space it out

[karens roses]

It was K i l l them. hmmmmm

[Mike4271]

I wil change the censor, Jane has just joined and logged into the Hen House, (good name??)

[Mike4271]

OK Done, you can Kill anything you want now

[karens roses]

LOL, I had the other page still open where I typed it, I thought at first , ooops what did I put there, I am so bad, lol
have to stay busy on the tank, rain coming, Hi to Jane in the hen house, love that name.

[karens roses]

Don't say that !!!!!!!!!! Havnt gotten that big ole tank in the house yet, killing it will kill me.
Will see if the sensor like the word kill or no kill, lol
Thanks for fixing that.

[SLAPPY]

Nope, a cleaner shrimp will not eat Aiptasia I'm afraid.

[GavTheGeordie]

i used joes juice, once applied i was amazed at how fast it shrivled up and dissapeared but after a couple of weeks ITS BACK!!!

[ziggy]

try some of jason's home brew nem killer its savage stuff they fall dead almost instantly

[ollski]

lemon juice, fresh or bottled.

[gturnbull]

Hi Folks,

Just had a session of apitsia killing, tried the kalk, but to messy and can't do to many at once, tried the lemon juice, not to keen on dumping to much of that in the tank either, read mixed results on the pep shrimps, not got myself in a nudi buying group yet.

So I tried the boiling RO water and it seemed to work pretty well, as no side affets as it's RO water anyway, cautious not to go mental and raise my tank temp:), it has seemed to work pretty well, they just kinda disintegrated and the Bristleworms moved right in to eat the dying ap, also noticed some Amphipods tugging at the stems of some of the 1's I got, that did not retreat properly into there hiding holes.

Time shall tell but :thumbsup: for the boiling water injection method to deal with apitsia