Aiptasia but a normal procedures not plausible looking for ideers

[ilikefish69]

I know it’s been addressed but I’m looking for specific advice on my individual situation.
I had an aiptasia come in on a frag that had 30 heads of 3 diff kinds of Zoas. Wanted to save it and got it for $15 so I cut the healthy bits off into 3 frags. All of them are now growing without aiptasia. In the time between spotting the aiptasia and fragging it (first time ever cutting, fragging, modifying any coral) after getting the courage it had spread. Started with 2, injected them with lemon juice and didn’t see them come back but in the last 72 hours I’ve spotted something horrendous. I now see about 7 ranging from the diameter of pencil to pinky finger. Looking for quick advice. Something tried tested and successful. The normal things done that I can not do and why I believe they are not possible.

1) remove the rock
The aqua scape is 3 large pieces of 30-50 lb structures mortared and glued and braced together.
2) nudibranch/peppermint shrimp
I have a fairly good sized melanarus and leopard wrasse who reside in my fish submarine
3) filefish
I love Zoas and have many different types of small frags I am successfully growing out and do not want eaten
4) aiptasiax/f-aiptasia/vinegar/lemon
Some of these little boogers are in spots that are nearly impossible to reach. Also tried to kill 2 this way and I believe I just ended up turning them into 7 more :/

picture is today they are on the rock under the rack and arch in middle

Don’t mind green tank doing maintenance scraping and cleaning today grabbed a picture

 

[ilikefish69]

Wrong pic

 

[Lbrdsoxfan]

Butterfly fish maybe. Otherwise your options are slim. I'm in the same boat with the wrasses (thus no peppermint shrimp) and mixed bag with aiptasia x. I'm considering a butterfly fish.

 

[ilikefish69]

The copperband? I have seen different opinions on those. Do you know if they are reef safe and do not pick at corals? The food that I make has 10+ ingredients if I found one that was eating and healthy I could keep it alive my leopard just ate some pellets today cause he saw everyone else eating them lol

 

[Gtinnel]

I am in a similar situation. I tried killing a few aiptasia in my tank with chemicals and they have spread to a full outbreak. I ended up going with a copperband butterfly. I have mine in a qt tank until I can make sure he is healthy enough to go into my display, but I no longer have aiptasia in my qt/observation tank.
If nudis, peppermint shrimp, filefish, and chemicals are out then I agree with above that you are running out of options and many of the butterfly fish aren’t very reef safe.

 

[SillyReef]

file fish or butter fly depends if it works

 

[SillyReef]

best to glue over or remove rocks

 

[Gtinnel]

The copperband? I have seen different opinions on those. Do you know if they are reef safe and do not pick at corals? The food that I make has 10+ ingredients if I found one that was eating and healthy I could keep it alive my leopard just ate some pellets today cause he saw everyone else eating them lol

Copperbands are mostly reef safe and in my experience reef safe if you can keep them well fed, which is often the struggle with them. However there is no guarantee they will eat aiptasia, or that they won’t go after some coral.
If you do go with copperband read up about getting them to eat, I strongly recommend getting a culture of white worms going before buying one. That’s what has kept mine fed and healthy.

 

[TangerineSpeedo]

Butterfly fish maybe. Otherwise your options are slim. I'm in the same boat with the wrasses (thus no peppermint shrimp) and mixed bag with aiptasia x. I'm considering a butterfly fish.

Before I adopted my raccoon butterfly out, I put him in the forty. OMG! Aptasia GONE! I think in a couple days! Has not returned since. He did pick at my SPS a bit, I didn't put the softies in yet. Definitely not reef safe, but neither is chemotherapy. I would do it if I was overrun. Take the loss.
Interesting that Polo Reef has a huge Raccoon permanently living with all that coral.

 

[Lbrdsoxfan]

The copperband? I have seen different opinions on those. Do you know if they are reef safe and do not pick at corals? The food that I make has 10+ ingredients if I found one that was eating and healthy I could keep it alive my leopard just ate some pellets today cause he saw everyone else eating them lol

There are other butterfly fish that will eat aiptasia that's not as fickle as a copperband. I've been hunting for a Klein lately.

 

[Fish Think Pink]

agree above with glue or F-Aiptasia... problem with lemon or any other injectible solution is if you are not careful, you may cause it to split... and every bit becomes a new aiptasia.

Searching internet, I came across study that says aiptasia may drop between 1.7 to 5 a week... It is definately the type of problem to be aggressive going after in, and then going forward consider quarantine tank for your corals.



F-Aiptasia is featured in new BRS video. I've used a lot of the original color and original formula, but loving the newly launching pink (it pinks up even more over time... my BF thought I added a new coral, but it was just new pink F-Aiptasia after 2 weeks before siphoning out )

 

[Garf]

I resorted to a filefish, it loves zoas and Duncan’s. Calcium hydroxide mixed into a thin paste with sodium hydroxide works best, but only the parts you can get to with a syringe.