Help please - need ideas

[SueAndHerZoo]

I have a 72 gallon bowfront that is exclusively for my ponies, and then a 90 gallon tank with fish. My seahorse tank is getting taken over by both bristleworms and aiptasia. I've tried killing the aiptasia individually, I've tried every worm trap that I've ever read about, and still the tank is dangerously high in both pests. I don't want to get the fish/inverts that eat worms and aiptasia because they're not good with seahorses. So my frustration has led me to two possible ideas:

Move the horses to a spare 10 gallon tank, get some fish that will eat bristleworms and aiptasia, and once they've done their job, tear the rockwork apart to catch them, then put the ponies back. Lots of drawbacks to that, including not knowing how stressful it will be for ponies to be in a 10 gallon that will need daily water changes.

Or..... put an infested rock at a time in the 10 gallon tank with a fish / invertebrate that will eat the aiptasia and bristleworms and then return the rock to the pony tank.

I was going to put the rock in my 90 gallon where it would get cleared, but there was/is ich in there so I don't want to risk it. I am open to ideas/suggestions/thoughts, and thank you in advance.
Sue

 

[Jekyl]

Bristleworms are free clean up crew in my eyes. If you have a ton, it's because there's a bunch for them to eat.

As for aiptasia, a syringe with lemon juice
or tank water mixed with kalk will kill them. Otherwise peppermint shrimp and bumble bee snails sometimes eat them.

 

[SueAndHerZoo]

Bristleworms are free clean up crew in my eyes. If you have a ton, it's because there's a bunch for them to eat.

As for aiptasia, a syringe with lemon juice
or tank water mixed with kalk will kill them. Otherwise peppermint shrimp and bumble bee snails sometimes eat them.

Yes, there is an excess of nutrients for bristleworms because you need to feed seahorses 4 times a day for optimum health. And bristleworms do clean, but they have also stung and killed some seahorses.

I have tried killing the aiptasia but some of them are unreachable, and I have TONS of live plants in there (to help with the nutrients) and I'd have to rip those off the rocks to get to all the aiptasia that is hiding amonst them.
Sue

 

[Sophie"s mom]

I have a 72 gallon bowfront that is exclusively for my ponies, and then a 90 gallon tank with fish. My seahorse tank is getting taken over by both bristleworms and aiptasia. I've tried killing the aiptasia individually, I've tried every worm trap that I've ever read about, and still the tank is dangerously high in both pests. I don't want to get the fish/inverts that eat worms and aiptasia because they're not good with seahorses. So my frustration has led me to two possible ideas:

Move the horses to a spare 10 gallon tank, get some fish that will eat bristleworms and aiptasia, and once they've done their job, tear the rockwork apart to catch them, then put the ponies back. Lots of drawbacks to that, including not knowing how stressful it will be for ponies to be in a 10 gallon that will need daily water changes.

Or..... put an infested rock at a time in the 10 gallon tank with a fish / invertebrate that will eat the aiptasia and bristleworms and then return the rock to the pony tank.

I was going to put the rock in my 90 gallon where it would get cleared, but there was/is ich in there so I don't want to risk it. I am open to ideas/suggestions/thoughts, and thank you in advance.
Sue

I don't have personal experience in this, but I have heard that injecting the aptasia with almost boiling hot water. I have heard about the lemon juice as well. But I have also heard that can mess with the water parameters a bit.

 

[Debramb]

Frank at Frank’s Tanks I Fort Worth Texas sells a Very good Aptasia killer. I don’t know how long it takes for Bristleworms to die out, but if you did move your ponies to 10g and therefore no food, I would think moving the rocks around to reach aiptasia would expose the worms hiding under and would allow you to net them. They are so easy to cull, just gently wave a net over and they float. I over feed and have to cull them. Also, lights out and you can just net off the sides. You are working hard to have success with such a tank, others can learn from you
Good Luck (pics please!)
Debra

 

[SueAndHerZoo]

Frank at Frank’s Tanks I Fort Worth Texas sells a Very good Aptasia killer. I don’t know how long it takes for Bristleworms to die out, but if you did move your ponies to 10g and therefore no food, I would think moving the rocks around to reach aiptasia would expose the worms hiding under and would allow you to net them. They are so easy to cull, just gently wave a net over and they float. I over feed and have to cull them. Also, lights out and you can just net off the sides. You are working hard to have success with such a tank, others can learn from you
Good Luck (pics please!)
Debra

I'll check out Frank's Tanks, thank you! Regarding the bristleworms, I decided to reaquascape half of my tank (where most of the live rock is) and as I removed each piece of rock from the tank I swished it in a bucket of unsalted RO DI water. Wow, I was amazed at how many worms came out of hiding where I could grab them with tweezers! I didn't get all of them because I didn't want to expose the rock to too much non-salted water but I got LOT of them, which is what I was hoping to do. I will never totally be rid of them (and as others have said, having some is a good thing) but I did want to cut back on the numbers as they were really out of control. I also purchased an arrow crab hoping he will pick off some of them in his journeys. (Picture is what I got off of a few pounds of live rock by swishing in fresh water).

Now I will work on reaching the aiptasia that I can get to easily and hope the ones I can't get to, the ponies also can't get too close to.
Thanks for your kind words.

 

[SaltBabies]

You are over feeding and not cleaning up afterwards.
I only feed once a day and I breed seahorses.

I do provide natural food 'in tank' like amphipods and shore shrimp. But that is occasional (though the ampipods breed in my tank) but slowly. I give them the live food to entertainment more than nutrition.

I know some of the literature takes about seahorses will die if they go without food for 1 day. It simply isn't true. You think when a hurricane comes through Florida and they can hunt they die?

Anyways. Remove the extra food, trap some worms and the population will go down. It is also not very likely that the bristle worms killed your horses. They are scavengers and are often times found on dead things but that doesn't mean they killed them just like vultures don't kill possums.

Excess food is the most common cause of seahorse death in my experience. It creates conditions for Vibrio which is a skin wasting disease. Once a seahorse has that it can be very difficult to treat.

Keep the temps low and the food reasonable for good seahorse health.

PS. I've shipped seahorses that took 3 days to get to a place and they all survived. So no food for 3 days.

Do they like to eat all the time sure. They don't need it.

 

[SaltBabies]

PS the aptasia is a problem as it stings and some of the aptasia may pack a very strong sting. Large peppermint shrimp will be ok in your tank. They will be too big for your seahorses to eat and they will clean up as well. Some eat aptasia.

Aptasia also thrives in high food environments.