How to get rid of Aptasia?!?!

[NoMu Fish]

Hello!

I currently have one pretty good sized aptasia that is sprouting off of my Zoa Frag. How do I get rid of it and what should I do now that I have it in my tank? Please help me out!

 

[R33fDaddy]

Can you pull the frag out of the tank? I'm guessing you're talking about your display tank and not a QT.

 

[MaxTremors]

This really isn’t an emergency. There are several methods you can use to get rid of it. What I’ve found to work the best is to smother it superglue (gel). You can also smother it in kalk paste, buy commercial preparations, inject them with boiling water (need a needle and syringe, can also use kalk water). What you want to be careful of is damaging it, if you cut or rip it, it can release spores (don’t think they’re actually spores) that will spread all over your tank and then you’ll have many aiptasias. Just irritate it a little so that it retracts and then cover it with superglue.

 

[blazin'reefer]

if it is isolated on a single rock i would take it out asap and let it dry and die and i wouldnt use that rock again without cleaning with bleach or for a long time or sitting dry. If thats not an option you could try kalk paste but it will likely end up spreading it, i tried that and vinnegar and also lemon juice and all seemed to make the problem worse, only thing that worked for me to reduce the numbers down from hundreds to near 0 are natural predators such as peppermint shrimp (supposedly hit and miss) keukenthali cleaner shrimp (2 cleared my infestation) aiptasia eating filefish and other predators. Anything that will eat aiptasia should have a disclaimer though that they may also eat fleshy coral polyps.