Aiptasia: Do you ever just leave them alone? What happens if you do?

Have you ever just left aiptasia alone in your tank?

  • Yes and they multiplied beyond control

    Votes: 183 30.2%
  • Yes and they seemed to stay the same

    Votes: 92 15.2%
  • Yes and they started to diminish over time

    Votes: 36 5.9%
  • No, I remove quickly

    Votes: 239 39.4%
  • Other (please explain)

    Votes: 56 9.2%

  • Total voters
    606

Try'nNotToKillStuff

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um yeah you can get aiptasia in Canada, it can come in some frags you get from the lfs or order from online :)
I beg to differ. Aiptasia require the proper environment to thrive. Canada, being populated by extremely polite and courteous people, is a completely inhospitable environment for the rude little jerks that are aiptasia. Now, New York and Los Angeles . . . . that is a different story.
 

igord

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I always have someone who eats apstasia in my aquarium, right now it's a copperband butterfly, so it's somewhere between "other" and the "immediately remove"
 

Emerson

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Afraid to say out loud that I've never had Aptasia. I have had Majano Anemones. Kalk paste seemed to work ok, but always popped up somewhere else. Frank's F-Aptasia and Superglue got rid of them for me.
 

ReefRondo

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No matter how carful I am I always end up with them. I have 4 systems and all 4 have them. Even my new office tank has them and it was dry rock and bare bottom with no transfer of anything from my other tanks except a tang.
 

bnord

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I've had a few in my refugiums and one in a cannister filter a year or two ago. I've always scraped them out when I see them but they've never spread in my tank.

On the flip side of that is the fact that no nems seem to survive in my tank. I've tried 3 BTAs and a Condi and none of them have made it more than 3-4 months. Nothing is eating them, they just shrink and disappear.
I too have an anenmone issue too. Have a tank that supports all sorts of soft, SPS and LPS, but the Nems shrink up almost right away, and then stay that way for 3 months and then they are gone.
Maybe that is why my aptasia control is so successful

that said, I have spotted a few and a combo of peppermint shrimp and 2-3X F aptasia has done the trick
 

ying yang

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I have pictures of before and after of Aiptasia. Me leaving them alone, did not solve anything. This is about 6 months of aiptasia taking over my tank. tens of thousands of them covering my sand bed, all my rocks, surrounding my corals.. They were even growing on my glass running out of places for them to grow. This is just one part of my 340 gallon tank. Every rock was like this! (And yes, I still have that plate coral, it's about double in size now! )
Before Copperband.jpg


This is after I got a Copperband Butterfly (roughly from January to May is the time it took to clean it all up.. He ate it like it was candy! ) Same spot, no aiptasia!

After Copperband.jpg

Very impressive what the cbb did.
I just bought a small zoa rock with at least 6 tiny aiptasia on it,so im hoping my cbb sees them and eats them before they spread as im little concerned if I try kill them I may irritate them and make them spread
 

ying yang

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Io le lasciavo e si moltiplicavano. HO inserito un acreichthys tomentosus e sono sparite tutte
Just to help out,Google translate says this means ........

I left them and they multiplied. I inserted an acreichthys tomentosus and they are all gone
Like

Screenshot_20211112-142425_Google.jpg
 

Bruce Burnett

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I deal with the ones easily reached but, I have found reduce the feeding help control. If you can have them peppermint shrimp help a lot while the aiptasia are small
 

WallyB

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My Small 35 G frag tank (Isolated from DT) got a aptasia outbreak over last few months. It will not spread to my DT's so no worry. My two DT's do have the odd aptasia, and I've wanted to treat the aptasia before it gets worse.

I'm letting the Aptasia spread in the Frag Tank. (for a good reason)

I now have the perfect setup to start a "Berghia Nudi" Farm in a small 5 Gallon tank. Plan is to get a few Bergia's and I have plenty of food (aptasia) to have them breed to larger numbers. Once I have enough Berghia's I'll release them into my much larger DT's.

Bit more work but cost effective, since Berghia's are not cheap and you need proper quantity to treat larger tanks.
 

Wasabiroot

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If they're not encroaching on any coral and are staying relatively low in numbers, I prefer not to go all out war. I have a peppermint shrimp and will probably try an aiptasia eating file fish if they ever get problematic. I have a small colony (4-5 polyps) in a back area that isn't near any coral and they're behaving for now. But any tiny polyps that sprout near my zoas I use lemon juice on. I've found with lemon juice that multiple treatments are sometimes necessary.
 

FortLivingRoom

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My tank is 10 months old and I just got a new frag yesterday that I saw 3 aptasia on. I used tweezers and plucked them as good as I could, but they’re very hard to grab like that. I rinsed the frag and placed in display last night. This morning I get out the flashlight and there were still 3 more I didn’t see! Said f this and tossed the frag.
 

Midrats

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Anyone use berghia with a wrasse in the tank? I used them with success before, but there's a Carpenter's wrasse in there now.
 

nicksreefs

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I'm in the second vote in the other category... so have 3 tanks and have had the below experience:

Tank 1 super nano - 55L - some btas (2 soon to be 3 :D) zoas etc - never seen aiptasia
Tank 2 nano - 120L - 1 aiptasia appeared on the live rock - still only have the one...
Tank 3 - 160L - 1 aiptasia appeared from a frag - suddenly had 10 or so here and there, did nothing, now have just the first 1?

So summary: meh leave it be... that said i do have some red sea aiptasia X around (unopened!) but hey they haven't hurt me, the fish or the corals so... live and let live I say (for now - mess with my clowns and well you're in trouble bucko ;))
 

hikermike

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Had aiptasia, did not multiply for months then suddenly took off. Peppermint shrimp from local Petco never work but peppermint shrimp from a LFS in Seattle always works. ( they look different so I don't think Petco source's them right). Once I was without shrimp and 1 got big and a few others started up. Was surprised at how easy lemon juice in a needle and syringe worked...they just shriveled up from a drop.
 

A worm with high fashion and practical utility: Have you ever kept feather dusters in your reef aquarium?

  • I currently have feather dusters in my tank.

    Votes: 63 36.6%
  • Not currently, but I have had feather dusters in my tank in the past.

    Votes: 59 34.3%
  • I have not had feather dusters, but I hope to in the future.

    Votes: 24 14.0%
  • I have no plans to have feather dusters in my tank.

    Votes: 26 15.1%
  • Other.

    Votes: 0 0.0%
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