Aptasia Miracle!

Terri Caton

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Ok, the strangest thing has just happened in my larger tank. (To be honest strange things are Always happening in my tanks)

This is how literally hundreds and hundreds of Aptasia disappeared overnight in my tank!

Aptasia. Hate them, hate them, hate them. I have been waging war on them for months and months now. 2 weeks ago I bought a Manjano Wand. Best purchase ever! So much sadistic fun killing those suckers off and it works like a charm! However, I knew there was absolutely no way I would ever get rid of all of them.
(Tried Berghia but my Wrasse ate all $350 of them)

Fried many of the visible ones over the course of the next couple of weeks. One happy day a few days later I was cleaning my sand bed. And, I made a very stupid mistake. I normally put a 50 micron sheet in one sock chamber and put the hose in it. I suck up the water, it gets out all the fine particles, and the water goes back in to my tank. Well, that day I put the hose in the sock chamber that didn't have the sheet in it. This was a very neglected tank I rescued and the sand bed was NASTY so I've been cleaning it little by little. A huge mess was in the tank at this point to say the least!!!

What did I do? Panicked of course! I had some AmGuard on hand so dumped some in. About 2x the recommended dose or 2 capfuls per 20 gal.

Anyway, everything was happy if not a little freaked out but settled down fine. Water cleared and it was back to business.

I went to bed and the next morning every single itty bitty Aptasia was literally gone!!! I searched and searched and couldn't find a single one. Now, three days later, I still haven't found one!
What the heck?!

Here are some variables that happened.

New ReeFi lights about 1 month ago.
I took out some of the rocks that had hundreds of Aptasia on them. A couple at a time.
Obviously there was a big shift in water quality when I screwed up the sand bed sifting.
I stopped all methods of killing Aptasia except the Majano Wand.
I dosed a large amount of AmGuard.

My water parameters didn't change during this period. TBH I haven't tested in the last couple of days because everything seems happy.

Anyway, maybe someone wants to do some experiments to see if they can figure out what worked for them all to disappear? If you can make a product that would replicate this I guarantee you'd be a zillionaire! (And you'd better give me a slice of the pie :) )

I'll list parameters if anyone wants them.
 

ReeferSteve

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100,000% so far anyway. I keep looking and looking. I had so many it looked like a lush Aptasia garden. Every thing I tried just made them worse.
I wonder if you stirred something up that snuffed then out? But you said you’ve had no ill effects to your other inhabitants?
 
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Terri Caton

Terri Caton

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Here’s a before pic

A368DA81-273B-4288-9DDE-13930CBD2715.jpeg
 
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Terri Caton

Terri Caton

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I wonder if you stirred something up that snuffed then out? But you said you’ve had no ill effects to your other inhabitants?

No. Everything is exactly the same. I moved some corals to the sandbed so I could get to the Aptasia.
 

Rilo

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I wonder if it affects more then just aiptasia...
 

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do you have a peppermint shrimp? once they learn aptasia is a food they will demolish it. It can come back though if it lives in your sump or inaccessible places. Also possible berghia reproduced in your tank and ate it.
 

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By all reports the berghia behave just like that. There is a critical mass situation where the aptaisia can grow and support a rather huge number of berghia. Then boom...the Aiptasia r gone literally over nite. Berghia also only come out and feed after dark.
 

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So someone running without sump. To duplicate this is vacuum the sand bed , then dump the yuck bucket back into the aquarium. Then add a double dose of AmGuard? Correct ?
 

Anthonyl

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This happened to me once. Had a great aptasia garden growing, killing my corals. Then they started to disappear. Thought maybe my filefish was finally doing its job. All fish and rest of corals seemed happy.. a few days and it was almost all gone.. tested water and everything looked good. Did a water change and bam! The garden was back in 12 hrs. Since then the tank has been shut down, cleaned and restarted.. oh and the filefish only ate my zoas
 

fishguy242

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watching this one ,keep us posted
 
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Terri Caton

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Do you know your ammonia levels prior to the use of the AmGuard? And the stirring of the sand?

Zero. Amguard is what I had on hand so threw some in.

My LFS says maybe it was some kind of off-gas from stirring the sandbed but it seems unlikely as it didn't bother anything else.

Day 4. Still no Aptasia.
 

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