Reef nutrition

Best way to get rid of a single aiptasia?

IOnceWasLegend

IOnceWasLegend

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While moving my tank yesterday, I noticed a single aiptasia in the tank. I'd like to nuke it before it spreads, but the only way I know is berghia. Anybody have any suggestions?

Thanks!
 
$12 soldering iron. kill it and any spawn... that's what I do in tanks where I truly don't want aiptasia.

If you want to take the natural course, filefish work relaly wekk as well for me... but YMMV,
 
NanoCrazed said:
$12 soldering iron. kill it and any spawn... that's what I do in tanks where I truly don't want aiptasia.

If you want to take the natural course, filefish work relaly wekk as well for me... but YMMV,
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Do you just turn it on outside the tank then plunge it down into the aiptasia? I'm fine with trying that as a first course since there's only the one, and might try a filefish if it spreads.
 
Not aiptasia-x. It’s the only thing I’ve used and it seems to allow them to spread. I’m going to try F-aiptasia if I see any ever again and can’t manually remove. I had one on a frag plug so I cut that part of the plug off. @sfsuphysics just used f-aiptasia but it might be too early for a verdict.

I believe F-aiptasia is close to being super glue mixed with kalk, aiptasia-X is just kalk paste. So diy May be an option if you have kalk and glue
 
max_nano said:
Not aiptasia-x. It’s the only thing I’ve used and it seems to allow them to spread. I’m going to try F-aiptasia if I see any ever again and can’t manually remove. I had one on a frag plug so I cut that part of the plug off. @sfsuphysics just used f-aiptasia but it might be too early for a verdict.

I believe F-aiptasia is close to being super glue mixed with kalk, aiptasia-X is just kalk paste. So diy May be an option if you have kalk and glue
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It's actually in a position where I could try manual removal with tweezers; just worried about breaking a piece off and letting it spread. If I were to pull off/snap it off at the base would that work?
 
IOnceWasLegend said:
It's actually in a position where I could try manual removal with tweezers; just worried about breaking a piece off and letting it spread. If I were to pull off/snap it off at the base would that work?
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don't cut! stressed aiptasia will release spores. burn it until surrounding area is dry with the soldering iron
 
The only definitive way is to cut/chip off the rock where the Aiptasia is attached, and remove the entire Aiptasia along with the rock it is immediately attached to. Preferably outside the tank if you can. There is nothing you can do directly to the Aiptasia itself in the tank that will be as effective.

F-Aiptasia is definitely better than Aiptasia-X, mainly because it forms a rock hard shell over it.

It is very unlikely that you only have 1 Aiptasia regardless of what you think you see. They spread by pedal laceration all the time and form tiny babies less than 1 mm from their foot that are easy for me to see in my Aiptasia breeding tanks, but very hard to see on live rock.
 
JVU said:
The only definitive way is to cut/chip off the rock where the Aiptasia is attached, and remove the entire Aiptasia along with the rock it is immediately attached to. Preferably outside the tank if you can. There is nothing you can do directly to the Aiptasia itself in the tank that will be as effective.

F-Aiptasia is definitely better than Aiptasia-X, mainly because it forms a rock hard shell over it.

It is very unlikely that you only have 1 Aiptasia regardless of what you think you see. They spread by pedal laceration all the time and form tiny babies less than 1 mm from their foot that are easy for me to see in my Aiptasia breeding tanks, but very hard to see on live rock.
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I might go with F-Aiptasia then, since it's not in a position to clip the rock off and removing the rock it's on would be a pain.

Given you have a ton of experience with aiptasia: what would you recommend for a 20 gallon tank for aiptasia removal?
 
IMO... be a pain then, physical removal is IMO the only absolute way to remove... but the caveat with that is that it very well may be like other pests, mice, roaches, etc, if you see one there's probably a more that you don't see. So "yay I got it" and then you see another one... and another and another, then F this sh*t! sets in.

And yeah, way way way to earlier for me to know if F Aiptasia does anything other than make a white crust over the aiptasia. Even with this, it very well may work, but if you get 95% of them, that remaining 5% will eventually repopulate as it apparently did with me, and you typically don't see them until they get to a certain size, so who knows when they're tiny how many times they're multiplying if they move.

Biological methods though, are a great way to keep the numbers in check without you needing to see them, the downside to that is if you use nudibranchs and eventually they can't find any more they die, and if there are any more... well see the paragraph above.
 
sfsuphysics said:
IMO... be a pain then, physical removal is IMO the only absolute way to remove... but the caveat with that is that it very well may be like other pests, mice, roaches, etc, if you see one there's probably a more that you don't see. So "yay I got it" and then you see another one... and another and another, then F this sh*t! sets in.

And yeah, way way way to earlier for me to know if F Aiptasia does anything other than make a white crust over the aiptasia. Even with this, it very well may work, but if you get 95% of them, that remaining 5% will eventually repopulate as it apparently did with me, and you typically don't see them until they get to a certain size, so who knows when they're tiny how many times they're multiplying if they move.

Biological methods though, are a great way to keep the numbers in check without you needing to see them, the downside to that is if you use nudibranchs and eventually they can't find any more they die, and if there are any more... well see the paragraph above.
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and that's why I like filefish... but have to keep an eye out for the occasional coral nipper
 
I encountered one in my tank a few weeks ago inside of a crevasse where I was unable to cut the rock it was attached. I injected kalkwasser slurry into the aiptasia and plugged the hole with reef putty stick. Keeping an eye out but no signs of any more.
 
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