Dealing with large Aiptasia

[A sea K]

I'm on board with peppermints from the fl keys. KP Aquatics is my go to source for them. They have worked quite well in my experience but stop short on the larger aiptasia. BTW, as you have already considered, peppermints do NOT go with berghia's, definately would have to choose one or the other. I have been considering the berghia's but I have 7 wrasses so that is a deal breaker for me.

 

[NanoJimmy]

I have failed using Aiptasia-X. It kills them for sure but if you miss any, they multiply like crazy. I only have a problem with them in one of my tanks and I think I'm gonna give peppermints a go. Currently, the only tank inhabitant is a clown so I'm thinking about taking him out and putting some peppermints in and not feeding forcing them to go for the aiptasia. Is that too cruel? I would just hate myself for starving them if they died.

 

[A sea K]

I have failed using Aiptasia-X. It kills them for sure but if you miss any, they multiply like crazy. I only have a problem with them in one of my tanks and I think I'm gonna give peppermints a go. Currently, the only tank inhabitant is a clown so I'm thinking about taking him out and putting some peppermints in and not feeding forcing them to go for the aiptasia. Is that too cruel? I would just hate myself for starving them if they died.

I would be careful starving them, no telling what they might eat trying to survive. IME peps will eat the aiptasia or they wont, I really dont think starving them will help. I've not had had issues but I feed heavy, i have heard others have had peps turn on their coral so I would use caution.

 

[Smarkow]

Thanks all. So my thought is to go with filefish + scat as my next method. The fiance thinks the scat is cute. She has odd taste, she’s marrying me after all, lol. I’ll do a second round of berghia as option #2 and peppermints as #3, and forget the copperbands. Group consensus seemed really against the copperband.

Two things:
Anybody know if you can put multiple scat in a large tank? 210. Says 125 for solo scats, so this seems similar for anthias and other schoolers which should do fine in 210 in groups. How fast can you aclimmate? See ranges 20m to 1 hour online, with some articles stating because they are brackish they tolerate rapid swings in salinity. Do I need to emsure I am purchasing adults since the juveniles spend their time in freshwater?

Second, anybody have any experience with more than one filefish together? States they can be bred in home aquaria so my guess would be it is fine.. but I love my redtail, he just won’t touch aiptasia.

Thanks all

 

[Smarkow]

So last night I received 3x green scat and 2x bristle filefish. The scat came in water with SG 1.004, I aclimated them first to temp and then over an hour to my tank’s SG of 1.026 by doubling the water volume with tank water every 10 minutes for an hour.

Scat hiding in corner by return line for now. Fast little buggers. Shoaling for now. I could only get one halfway decent photo when one darted out for a mysis.

 

[ShawnSaucier]

Following, I have the same issue

 

[Smarkow]

Following, I have the same issue

Good luck :(
Teardown is not an option (If I want to stay engaged...)

 

[Robink]

I have always used berghia nudibranchs. They get to all the places you don't see and can't get to. I have used aiptasia x in the past however this sometimes causes the aiptasia to expel spores so you end up with more aiptasia. The berghias can take some time to work depending on the infestation and they are reef safe so no worries about having to catch a pest later. They will starve to death which is always sad when they run out of aiptasia to eat.

 

[Smarkow]

Update and photos.

So the aiptasia infestation continues after 10d. To give the filefish a taste for aiptasia, I’ve placed them in a breeder tank with some aiptasia infested rock. They’ve been in there for just under 48H now. The rock is three years cycled from my main display, so I am not overly worried about their health. They’ve picked at the bases and tentacles of a few large aiptasia, but rocks remain encrusted.

Today I’ll put a few snails in for them to eat, that was all they were interested in in the display. I don’t want them to starve, but we KNOW they can eat aiptasia... so sort of like making a kiddo eat his salad before he gets dessert?

 

[Smarkow]

So I am happy to say that I came back from my honeymoon about a month ago to a tank essentially free of aiptasia. There are a few small ones under some rocks, so I am SLOWLY siphoning out the sand to go bare bottom and putting 2LF stax rocks on the bottom as the "seafloor" to maintain a certain aesthetic.

I credit the filefish. I put 3x of them in (remember 210g) and they would not touch these things for a while. While I was gone the tank was broadcast fed every other day by a friend - 5 feedings in 9 days - so I wonder if they turned to the aiptasia as a food source after more easily sourced food was decreased in availability? The scats *may* have eaten some aiptasia as well, but they restrict themselves to less of the tank than the filefish so I am skeptical. Have not seen a nudibranch in 4 months, so zero credit to them. I threw out my Majano wand... @#$%^%$#$% that thing...

Anyways, my $0.02 for this whole debacle is filefish, reduce feeding, and get the sand and rubble out to kill aiptasia. I am sooooo thankful I did not have to take my tank down and lost only stony corals that I had duplicates of.

 

[Mical]

I've used filefish in two tanks. I purchased the ORA filefish and it took them about two weeks but they devoured aiptasia. I noticed they only eat them at night.

 

[Smarkow]

9 months later and still aiptasia free. Credit to the two filefish (in 210g display) and a 99% refugium turnover. I also eliminated 90+% of the sand in favor of STAX and gravel. Reason I thought to update this thread, however, is that one of my filefish bit into some coral frag glue and has it stuck to his upper tooth. This guy has done so mych work for me... deserves better. It was a week or so ago and he still looks good (pic attached below) so hoping he’ll pull through :/
But yeah, filefish for the WIN!!!

Clean tank:

The champ!

 

[Smarkow]

If anyone has any suggestions for if/how I should treat him please post on this thread here?
Thanks

Glue stuck to filefish’s upper tooth

Hi all, About 7-10 days ago I was gluing some frags. One of my filefish clearly confused some soft, white glue with a snail and bit i to it. Now a gob of glue has been stuck to his upper tooth for a week or so. He seems otherwise healthy. Too fast for me to catch him (probably a good sign?)...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[Anthonyl]

Well Im glad to hear that the file fish worked for you. I have one and I don't think hes doing anything but eating my pods.. Im going to try what you have done and stick him in a separate tank with the apt infested rock and see what happen. I will have to give a last ditch effort before I tear down.

 

[Smarkow]

Well Im glad to hear that the file fish worked for you. I have one and I don't think hes doing anything but eating my pods.. Im going to try what you have done and stick him in a separate tank with the apt infested rock and see what happen. I will have to give a last ditch effort before I tear down.

So the one thing I really noticed was that I left town for maybe 10 days and had my tank only fed every other day while I was gone. Left home with a tank full of aiptasia, came home and it was clear (and has stayed clear). So I wonder if restricting the availability of easy food will sort of turn on their hunting instincts?

Good luck, hang in there!

 

[krash7172]

+1 for filefish. It took a couple weeks to train mine. I did something similar by putting him in my frag tank first which had nems and I fed very lightly.