Aptasia begone!

[fishnchips17]

So this is how bad my aptasia problem was.

This is how the rock looks after 5 days.

Don't let the copperband fool you, he only eats the really small aptasia. I got rid of 90% of the aptasia myself just by using lemon juice and a needle syringe.

If I had known how easy and effective lemon juice and a needle is, my aptasia problem would never have gotten this bad. I've used commercial aptasia products before, but why waste money when lemon juice is just as effective. Plus with the needle I can be very precise with my application and not accidentally hurt other nearby corals.

The syringe and needle cost me less $1 at my pharmacy. I bought the 3ml syringe and the longest needle they had.

To kill the aptasia, I just impale them in the mouth and inject a little lemon juice. It's quite satisfying impaling aptasia then watching them melt. Just don't use too much lemon juice in one day cause it can affect the ph of your tank.

Hope this helps other reefers with aptasia problems.

 

[Idech]

Do you dilute it or use it pure ? Do you use the one that’s sold in a plastic lemon ?

 

[fishnchips17]

Do you dilute it or use it pure ? Do you use the one that’s sold in a plastic lemon ?

I just use it pure, you only really need to inject very little in the aptasia. Yep, I used the one in the plastic lemon.

 

[ptrahan]

Good job! Glad it worked!

 

[CoralB]

Nice !

 

[kipmando]

Just wanted to say thanks for this post.

I have a 6-line and the three nudi's that I added ($20 cdn each) were just fish food for it. The peppermint shrimp ($30) ate one aptasia and decided that was plenty enough.

I tried the lemon juice injection, used my weldon4 needled and bottle to do the precise injections and I watched as a dozen aptasia turned to white stringy globs to be turkey basted way.

Used a $0.50c solution after spending $100 fighting aptasia. I think this is the state of the reefing hobby these days. It encourages me to go back to the old school methods for some problem solving.

 

[Reefkeepers Archive]

Thanks! I'm definitely going to try this. I only have 3 in my tank but it won't stay like that for long!

 

[Betex]

You just convinced me to finally do some cleanup!

 

[1112-425XL]

I've done the same with distilled white vinegar, works great!
I'll try the lemon juice next time...

 

[atnet360]

I may have to give this a try. My "aiptasia farm" (not really--just what I call my reef tank these days ) is really out of control. $100 worth of nudis were likely just an expensive meal for my melanarus wrasse (as were the ~$50 worth of peppermint shrip).

I've killed 3 copperbands trying to deal with the problem. The first one actually worked really well and cleaned up the tank nicely--but despite looking happy and healthy for 6 months, I came home one day to find him stuck to a powerhead--tried two more after that and could not get them to eat.

Currently I have an aiptasia eating filefish in there and have confirmed that he is eating aiptasia and (so far) ignoring my corals, but he's taking his time about it--plus he seems to prefer the small ones). If lemon juice can help him a long maybe I'll start enjoying my reef tank again