POLL: Do you have aiptasia in your reef tank?

[flashsmith]

I get one every now and again. Use aiptasia x it seems to work just fine. It won't be long and a special variation will pop up with a cool name and they will be selling for as much as an indo gold torch...

 

[Jedi1199]

Berghia! I literally bought ONE to battle quite a few as experiment wiped them out completely. Been over a year since Consider it please!

I am already thinking about that actually. My closest LFS doesn't have them, but they do have peppermints so I got a few of those yesterday to hopefully get a start on them until I can get a Berghia.

 

[Garf]

I had more yesterday than I do today

 

[i cant think]

Do you have aiptasia? If so, how do you manage it? If you don’t have aiptasia, how did you prevent them?

I had a HUGE outbreak of aptaisia but I got a true peppermint shrimp and not only is he completely reefsafe for now he also did an excellent job at removal along side Aiptasia X/Joe’s Juice.

 

[FiddlersReef]

Do you have aiptasia? If so, how do you manage it? If you don’t have aiptasia, how did you prevent them?

Kill it as soon as I see it. Currently using AiptasiaX.

 

[DanC40]

Do you have aiptasia? If so, how do you manage it? If you don’t have aiptasia, how did you prevent them?

New to Reefing started the tank. Came out of now where. Peppermint shrimp 2 days later all gone and 3 months later they have not come back.

 

[Mike from TN]

Call me “crazy” but I kinda like to have a few in my tank. I kill off the small (newly arrived) ones with “X” but I’ve let 4 of them grow to about half dollar size. Just another life form that flows in the current.

 

[PandorasChalk]

I had one pop up on the edge of a zoa frag recently. I covered it with putty and glue. It vanished for a few weeks, then came back. I went and looked up how to safely remove a zoa from a frag it is encrusted on, then moved the zoa off the frag and threw the frag into the fires of Mt. Doom.

Problem solved!

 

[NoahLikesFish]

i had 1 for like 10 mins and i was like "oh look at you cute little bugger" until my filefish swooped down and ate it

 

[exnisstech]

A few here and there in my two larger tanks. I have a nice size blue ridge that has a couple growing from inside it. The combo actually looks cool. My reefer 170 that houses most of my nicer LPS has one in the tank that I will be hitting with aptasia x. The over flow however is full of them so I expect it will just be an on going challenge as they make their way to the display.

 

[Hairyteeth]

.. so we’ve all got em is what you’re saying , has anybody removed said animal that eats aptasia and a year later still no aptasia?

 

[AlexKintner]

Was recently blessed with some aiptasia which arrived well camouflaged on a paly frag. I'm treating with Joe's Juice which works so well that I almost feel bad watching them implode. I also have a peppermint shrimp on the way for good measure.

 

[madweazl]

I started with all Reef Saver rock from BRS. I seeded that with two pieces of Fiji live; one of which did have a few aiptasia. I had tried Aiptasia X in the past and it never actually killed them. It would knock them back for a bit but they always came back. I ended up filling a meat injecting syringe with boiling water and hit them with that. It killed them off and I have been aiptasia free ever since.

It took a while to get everything going with the dead rock but it came around and ended up being a really nice acropora dominant tank (the 75g in the signature). I'd likely go with live rock for a future tank and would just go about nuking the aiptasia with the same boiling water method I used in the 75g.

 

[Wasabiroot]

I have a green filefish who loves to get in the nooks and crannies to remove the smaller ones. Unfortunately he loves to slurp up fallen astrea snails as well....but I digress.

The negative side of this is that one polyp has started to become a Beast, and it's grown on me. It's survived 3 or 4 direct lemon juice injections and a filefish .
I can see it grabbing passing food particles, and it keeps to itself for now. As long as I don't see babies spreading around, I am not going to waste money on gadgets. In my opinion they should be removed if they are irritating a colony but a solitary polyp by itself minding its own business isn't the end of the world.

However, where there's one there's more. Hence the filefish, who has been a model citizen (other than the Cynarina incident. We don't talk about that.)

 

[jmichaelh7]

Yes but filefish keeps them hidden

 

[Nachopapa]

I have a monster file fish that eradicated a Forrest of aptasia. I have to keep him happy with other food now!

 

[UK softy bloke]

Do you have aiptasia? If so, how do you manage it? If you don’t have aiptasia, how did you prevent them?

I have loads of the bloody things, I use aiptasia x on the ones I can reach. I have tried natural methods such as peppermint shrimp, nudibranchs and file fish, none worked at all, I'm not sure of the price of peppermint shrimp in the USA but here they are around £14 each so not cheap if you want a large number of them.

 

[Sharkbait19]

Thankfully, aiptasia (and other pest anemones) has been one of the few things my tank hasn't had any problems with.

 

[areefer01]

Do you have aiptasia? If so, how do you manage it? If you don’t have aiptasia, how did you prevent them?

Yes I do. Was in my display but managed it by manual injection and predators. Manually managed by using superglue or reef safe epoxy. Predator, in order of known (visual) effect:

1. BIOTA matted filefish
2. Peppermint shrimp
3. Copperband butterflyfish

Biota's matted filefish was a 100% success rate. Peppermint shrimp I found, and saw, them go after smaller sizes whereas the matted filefish went after all. The Copperband showed signs of foraging but appeared to be the smaller stalks as opposed to larger ones. I did have one large and not sure if he/she got it or the peppermints or a combination of both as it is since gone. Why not saying the matted filefish is because I moved it to my refugium to clear that area.

Display is managed. I see it in my overflow box, a lot of it, and also in my sump. It was in refugium but as noted above I moved the matted filefish and it cleared it.

TL; DR - doesn't bother me. Can be managed a few different ways both manually and via predators that work in most reef/display types when thought out properly and vetted.

 

[ClownSchool]

I used to have a problem with them in my old tank. My butterfly was fantastic until she ate corals. In my new set up, I have seen only 3 in the display. I added one peppermint and used the aiptasia x and have not seen anymore since.

In my lps and growout tank I keep peppermints in case they pop up. Only a few before they eat them up.

In my traveling tank, I had a little peppermint, but had to use aiptasia exit on the two that shot up.

Will peppermints go after BTAs? Or, do BTAs eat peppermints?