Aiptasia elimination

Florida Sunshine · Feb 20, 2019

Ok, so to make a long story as short as possible, I have a 90g tank that was taken over by colonial hydroids and aiptasia. I beat the hydroids (I hope) by using fish bendazole and manual removal of the rocks that had the majority of the dead tubes. This has left me with a quite impressive aiptasia farm.
I just ordered 16 medium berghia and 5 large berghia that will arrive tomorrow to hopefully clear out this mess.
I do have a question however.
The only thing in my tank needing light is a couple of softies, and a BTA.
Do you think I should leave the tank lights off for a couple of days when I introduce the berghia? The tank does get ambient light from the room and I wasn't necessarily thinking of a total blackout, but with less light I think the aiptasia will not be open as large and be easier for the berghia to get started.
Here are a few pictures to show you the type of infestation I am dealing with.

Sorry I guess my good aiptasia pictures are on my other computer. I'll try to upload a couple tonight. The full tank shot was before the hydroid removal. At this point basically the rocks in the center of the tank have been removed and new rocks have taken their place.

amoore311 · Feb 20, 2019

You can just add them after lights out and they will do fine.

With an infestation that large you might want to consider adding another aiptasia eater like a Aiptasia Eating File Fish. Those will definitely take care of even the largest aiptasia.

You can get small captive bred ones now and they are very docile.

dbraun15 · Feb 20, 2019

Agreed with above...I had a bristletail filefish take care of my problem that was close to yours...never saw him actually eating them, but took pics every few weeks to see the progress.

Special K · Feb 20, 2019

Agree with the filefish. I bought nudis first and they were working but they take forever. Filefish crushed them pretty quick

Seamore2001 · Feb 20, 2019

You can take care of a lot of them pretty easily by getting kalk or pickling lime, mixing it up into a paste and using a syringe (minus the actual needle) to just "shoot" the kalk solution into their mouths. You just go one by one and it'll nuke em pretty quickly. You should be able to get the pickling lime at a grocery store (or Amazon) and the syringe at a drug store / pharmacy. You won't be able to kill all of the aptasia, at least the ones hidden, but you can at least thin out the herd by getting all of the obvious ones and make it easier for the berghia to finish them off.

amoore311 · Feb 22, 2019

Seamore2001 said:
You can take care of a lot of them pretty easily by getting kalk or pickling lime, mixing it up into a paste and using a syringe (minus the actual needle) to just "shoot" the kalk solution into their mouths. You just go one by one and it'll nuke em pretty quickly. You should be able to get the pickling lime at a grocery store (or Amazon) and the syringe at a drug store / pharmacy. You won't be able to kill all of the aptasia, at least the ones hidden, but you can at least thin out the herd by getting all of the obvious ones and make it easier for the berghia to finish them off.

you have to be very careful with kalk once you have Berghia in the tank. The little bit of kalk touching them can kill them, and they tend to lay their eggs at the base of aiptasia stalks, so any kalk near the stalk is going to be working against the Berghia reproducing.

Biokabe · Feb 22, 2019

amoore311 said:
you have to be very careful with kalk once you have Berghia in the tank. The little bit of kalk touching them can kill them, and they tend to lay their eggs at the base of aiptasia stalks, so any kalk near the stalk is going to be working against the Berghia reproducing.

A better option might be just some lemon juice.

Normally, chemical treatments don't really work against aiptasia - all that happens is the big anemone turns into multiple tiny anemones, and then the plague just intensifies.

With berghia in the tank, though, you actually have something to attack the little anemones. So if you just give the bigger nems a little push, they'll disintegrate and turn into easier food for your berghia.

Florida Sunshine · Mar 6, 2019

Well the Berghia have been in the tank for a couple of weeks and no noticeable difference except the aiptasia are overtaking the clean rock from the sump. Hopefully they are doing their thing in some place I cannot see for now and I will move to the viewable areas soon.

Looking at the tank I have my BTA, my soft corals and my fish just hanging out with all of the aiptasia, but there is no algae in the tank. I recently bought two tangs and have to supplement nori for them on a daily basis, but there wasn't much algae in the tank even before getting the tangs. Do Aiptasia live off of nitrates or phosphates? It will be interesting to see what algae I get plagued with when the aiptasia are not longer there to live off of the excess nutrients.

Florida Sunshine · Mar 13, 2019

I think I am going to have to give the Berghia some help. I'm going to start getting some of the big ones with kalk so it is easier for the Berghia to knock them apart when they try to re-start.
I sure hope the Berghia are still working and breeding away in the tank. I keep trying to find one, but so far no success since the day I put them in the tank. The big ones in particular were really healthy so hopefully they made it. I saved one from the overflow. LOL
Gotta get serious with this darn tank.
Thinking about a filefish but that would be the end of the Berghia and I am still giving them some time to do their magic. My husband wants to order a laser and take them out one by one. LOL