Kessil

Nudibranch for Aptasia

CookieJar

CookieJar

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Does anyone know where I can find a Nudibranch that'll take care of my aptasia? I don't remember ever seeing them at LFS, but maybe i'm not checking with ones that carry them.
I've tried tons of peppermint shrimp, which have always worked for me in the past but they don't seem to do much for me now, and coperband butterfly and kalking them. All solutions have had either no or limited effectiveness so I'm resigned to trying the Nudibranch plan.
 
I was trying to breed them a while back, but it is a lot of work with minimal return.

Hard to raise the babies to a decent juvenile size.

And IN-TANK, it takes a while for them to reach critical mass (enough hatched eggs that mature before predation by zooplankton & shrimp).

So good luck, but your best bet is to group buy online and split with some people.

Just make sure to buy enough. A whole back, a few of us bought from Reef Pest Solutions.

As for aiptasia, I still have a pair of berghias I am keeping alive. I may try to breed them again, but just need to get back into the mood.
 
My tank is mostly aiptasia. I find them so beautiful and hypnotizing. This is the only way I can deal with them in my tank. They are gigantic now. Maybe I'll try and aiptasia-x them again tonight. Which either kills them or makes the multiply.

Personally, I can't deal with berghias. I've spent about $200 on them in the past and for absolutely nothing. The first bunch I got, I was acclimating them in a floating container and then they basically dissolved. The next bunch I put in a seperate tank with some aiptasias and they all disappeared.

I hate them. They are like bits of (expensive) kleenex in your tank. Just hanging around waiting to be destroyed.
 
What if we bought a Copperband & passed it on from tank to tank? I certainly wouldn't be able to keep it in my small setup, also that way it would collectively cost almost nothing more than some patience.

Aiptasia is all over the place in my tank, I trained a few peppermint shrimp to eat them but they didn't last long enough to wipe out all the Aiptasia, I can't inject them because there are way too many little ones in small areas I can't reach. Oh & from my reading, most who had experience with Berghias seem to be saying the same thing "they disappeared"
 
I agree. A passed around fish is not going to do well, and then it will die in someone's tank and they'll feel obligated to buy a new one...might as well just buy a new one and let it live in your tank!

If you can zap the ones you see, then just ignore the ones you can't see, then you should be good to go. I think you'll never get rid of them. I have tiny ones everywhere and I have HUGE ones. I mean, the size of my thumb. I'll nuke some tonight though, thanks for the reminder!

V
 
My issue is I have a total volume of 35 gallons in my current tank, so keeping the Copperband in such a small tank is outright cruel haha, I guess I'll have to get a bunch of peppermint shrimp again and also mix up some lethal injection juice for the obvious ones...
 
I tried a copperband recently and it didn't touch an aptasia, nor any food I tried to feed it, needless to say it didn't live too long . :( seems like almost all aptasia control methods are hit or miss and the important thing is to not obsess about them, rather keep an even keel and do what you can to make sure they don't become a plague.
 
I ordered that electronic Majano wand this afternoon.
Probably wishful thinking, but if nothing else, hopefully it will be fun.
I have had fairly good luck with Joe's-Juice, as long as I keep it refrigerated.
But that only works on aptasia/majanos that are facing somewhat upward.
 
Kalkwasser paste and a syringe (without the needle), or an eye dropper works in a pinch.

Turn off all your pumps so there is no/minimal water movement.

"feed the aiptasia" the paste. Let it sit in their tissue for 10-15 minutes, (or more)... Then turn on the pumps again.

You'll get maybe 80% killed and the other 20% will probably grow back eventually. So repeat. :)
 
I really recommend Matted Filefish ( http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/prod_display.cfm?c=15+30+2562&pcatid=2562 ) I have tried Berghias in my 180G tank but did not see much of the difference. You really need to buy a lot of them and that turns way too expensive. Copperband is probably a great way to deal with the problem and it look very cool but it will eat corals and it is just a relatively big fish. Filefish is much much smaller and does not eat corals (at least mine does not).

Joe juice, Aiptasia RX, kalkwasser - tried them all. Too much work and you get a cluster of small anemones in the place of the big one you have killed.

Note that it seems filefish will eat small anemones but wold not touch really big and scary ones. You may need to use one of those remedies to kill big ones, but the fish will help you eradicate small ones afterwards.

I have tried to put a rock with aiptasia shile my filefish was still in the quarantine, just to see what will happen. It is kind of cool to watch how it attacks the anemone and aiptasia was gone literally the next day.

Also see if you may be feed too much. Aiptasias grow and multiply when there is uneaten food floating around. It may make sense to adjust feeding regime too.
 
CookieJar said:
I'm going to give 4 nudibranch a shot, if those don't work then it's on to filefish.
Click to expand...

if you have scraped aiptasia (not attached to rock)... I can trade you some berghia egg clutches or you can wait until I have berghia babies in 1-2 months. Juveniles may be 2-3 months.

I would probably do something like

5 aiptasia per berghia egg clutch
2 aiptasia plus $2 per baby berghia
4 aiptasia plus $4 per juvenile berghia

(aiptasia need to be good sized, about size of two zoa polyps or bigger)
 
zeroinverse said:
if you have scraped aiptasia (not attached to rock)... I can trade you some berghia egg clutches or you can wait until I have berghia babies in 1-2 months. Juveniles may be 2-3 months.

I would probably do something like

5 aiptasia per berghia egg clutch
2 aiptasia plus $2 per baby berghia
4 aiptasia plus $4 per juvenile berghia

(aiptasia need to be good sized, about size of two zoa polyps or bigger)
Click to expand...
I would love to pick some up once you have some babies. Fortunately for me, I probably won't have any aiptasia to trade though. I only have a few small Aiptasia's in the tank (I've found 2, the larger one is smaller than a dime). I just want to stop the problem before it gets too big.
 
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