Aiptasia issue

pythpyth

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Hi everybody,

I got this aiptasia challenge, i tried so much already.

I used vinegar, joes juice (only made it worse) I had 5 peppermint shrimp (dont know if they were the correct ones.) 2 are still alive and only feed on pellets and my frozen cubes. And I got a filefish like 3 weeks ago, which only takes on cubes and pellets as well.

I kinda dont know what other options I got?

Thanks for helping!

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EnterName

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These are the things I tried and know of that may or may not help depending on aiptasia species, your tank, and a bit of luck with the right animals:

- Aiptasia X (stop if it makes the issue worse, follow instructions carefully and maybe siphon off the paste and dead Aiptasia cells after the 20minute waiting time before turning on the flow again). If there are aiptasia remains, it will recover or spread. In my experience it works great for some species but others will basically spread even worse.

- Lysmata wurdemanni is the peppermint shrimp you are looking for. L. kuekenthali doesn't work in my experience, but even wurdemanni can lose interest if other food is available.

- Berghia nudibranches (this requires you to get rid of shrimps and probably even hermit crabs as they might kill the Berghias). As long as the berghias stay alive this will work, as they eat nothing else besides aiptasia.

- Copperband butterflyfish if you have the space for it. This is what ultimately saved my tank as something in my tank was probably eating the berghias. Filefish is another option but it didn't work for me as well. It might depend on species or individual animal but I have heard the same about the copperband.
 
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pythpyth

pythpyth

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These are the things I tried and know of that may or may not help depending on aiptasia species, your tank, and a bit of luck with the right animals:

- Aiptasia X (stop if it makes the issue worse, follow instructions carefully and maybe siphon off the paste and dead Aiptasia cells after the 20minute waiting time before turning on the flow again). If there are aiptasia remains, it will recover or spread. In my experience it works great for some species but others will basically spread even worse.

- Lysmata wurdemanni is the peppermint shrimp you are looking for. L. kuekenthali doesn't work in my experience, but even wurdemanni can lose interest if other food is available.

- Berghia nudibranches (this requires you to get rid of shrimps and probably even hermit crabs as they might kill the Berghias). As long as the berghias stay alive this will work, as they eat nothing else besides aiptasia.

- Copperband butterflyfish if you have the space for it. This is what ultimately saved my tank as something in my tank was probably eating the berghias. Filefish is another option but it didn't work for me as well. It might depend on species or individual animal but I have heard the same about the copperband.
Thanks for replying! I did not try Aiptasia X yet indeed. But I would love to have a “natural” invert or fish to attack the aiptasia.

For a copperband my tank is to small, plus I wouldnt dare to.

And with the peppermint, I think I had some wurdemannis. Also had 1 kuekenthali but didnt do anything. I might try a few more.. I do order them as wurdemanni but never sure if they really are what they say. At the moment I do have 2 “wurdemannis” in my tank but yea they dont do a thing.

I might have to get some other wurdemannis, or trade in my filefish for a new one and hope for the best.. darn pest haha.
 

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