Need some aiptasia advice

[sfsuphysics]

Ok, so today I write down the location of every aiptasia I can see in my tank.. not happy with the results, but whatever I've been keeping them at check and finally perfected the kalkpaste recipe.

However I noticed one that wasn't really on a rock, it was near a rock but looks like it's on the shell of one of my Maxima clams, near the bottom part of the clam, as a result I'm tad hesitant to give it a healthy dose of paste as I don't want to harm the clam. So anyone have ideas? No butterfly fish please, I have LPS in there that are worth more than most of the butterfly fish out there.

 

[xinumaster]

I alway have luck with peppermint shrimp.

 

[Elite]

Me too.. I have two in my tank that love them..

 

[Paradox]

I just recently rid my entire 150 gallon tank of aptasia...

Im not exactly sure which did it, but I bought 15 peppermint shrimps and one copperband butterfly. (It never touches my lps)

In the past, Ive completely rid myself of aptasia with just the use of peppermint shrimps.


Now I gotta solve my Bubble algae problem!

 

[Apon]

mike - take a sharp knife to the shell of the clam an scrape the hell of the aipt. you should be able to get it all off since the clam shell should be smooth enough with no hole the thing can hide in.

 

[sfsuphysics]

Arnold: Yeah but the clam shell has ridges along it making it a bit difficult to scratch

Perry/Phong: Yeah I guess I never really thought of peppermint shrimp simply because the one I threw in there (rescued from sitting in my sump) I never see, and only times I've seen is when he steals food out of my lps at night

Daniel: I hear you with the bubble algae, not quite plague proportion, but man for every 3 I'm able to pick off cleanly, I have one that pops in the tank.

 

[Apon]

small knife or even a unfolded paperclip will work....toothbrush will work too. I have done it on little maximas.

 

[iani]

My friend got me some .1 and .5 M NaOH. The .1 doesn't work very well the .5 works well. If you have acess to 1M NaOH that would work even better. I'm sure you can get some where you teach.

 

[sfsuphysics]

Arnold, see I don't want to just scrape away really because I don't want to leave any of the stalk behind and then have 5 aiptasia

Ian: sodium hydroxide? I recall someone on rc... andyman(?) mentioned that working wonders, however it still goes back to the point, it's near the base of my clam, and I don't want to nuke the claim with a super high pH near it's foot

 

[iani]

You can use very little at a time inject it with a syringe (with a needle) right into the aptasia.

 

[sfsuphysics]

you have any syringes I can borrow doctor?? The smallest ones I have are the ones used to squirt weldon out

 

[Elite]

why don't you use AquaMend and cover the whole thing?? ofcourse just for the clam..

 

[iani]

I've been using 3cc syringes that we use for root canals. I just cut the tip to make it flat. The tips look similar to the ones I use weldon in though. http://www.tapplastics.com/shop/product.php?pid=176&
Looks similar to the small one. I can get you one if you want though. The syringes we use for injections wouldn't work unless I load the sodium hydroxide into the carpules.

 

[tuberider]

[quote author=Elite link=topic=4925.msg60173#msg60173 date=1224647925]
why don't you use AquaMend and cover the whole thing??
[/quote]

Yeah, why don't you?

 

[Raddogz]

I've tried the aquamend and ic gel too until the aip decides to work it's way to other side

 

[alve]

Are peppermint shrimp safe for SPS?

 

[tuberider]

[quote author=alve link=topic=4925.msg60181#msg60181 date=1224649548]
Are peppermint shrimp safe for SPS?
[/quote]

Somewhat IME, I had one that loved Montipora polyps. Other then that I've not had any problems.

 

[Tumbleweed]

From what I understand they are

 

[MontanaBay]

find a LFS that has peppermint shrimp and LRR with aiptasia (or a member), throw them in a small qt tank (copper free) and don't feed the shrimp until the aiptasia is gone! Hopefully when he hits your thank he'll be a well trained aiptasia warrior!

I haven't tried this, but I got lucky with a peppermint that was aiptasia crazy and it disappeared from my tank until it died. Seeing how peppermints will eat it, but not all do, I think its just a matter of them learning to, especially when other food sources are limited.

Cheers,

Josh

 

[Vincerama2]

I was at Aquatic Gallery and they had some stuff called "Aiptasia-X", so I looked it up on the web and it SOUNDS like it's good stuff. Unlike regular kalkpaste or Joe's Juice, which is more effective at turning one large aiptasia into 10 small aiptasias. But I don't have any real experiance with it. I might buy some to try out though.

Also, if I had ro mark where all the aiptasia is in my tank, I might as well just pour a bottle of dye in my tank. I think I have more aiptasia than water in my tank.

V

PS. Somewere in my tank there may or may not be 0-6 berghias eating/not-eating aiptasia. I'm guessing "not-eating" or "dead" because there seems to be no dent in the aiptasia population.