Killing aiptaisia in overflow

[sg88]

Hi all,

I have a fairly automated via Neptune Apex, stable for a few years, FOWLR and a few local zoanthids 50 gallon tank with a very, very crowded sump in the cabinet below. I have been very proud of the aesthetics and efficiency of the set up until...while I was out of town, something went wrong with my automated top-off. In trying to fix it from 3000 miles away, I really messed up the system, overflowed the tank and screwed up the salinity. I am now running my salt around 25 ppt where it had been at mid-30's. I use local seawater for all my automatic water changes (~3900 cc per day) and correct evaporation with RODI water (although this is now off due to the low salt), thus what is going in is not different.

I have 4 fish, 2 clowns, one Carpenter wrasse and on aiptaisia eating file fish. They are well appearing despite the salinity change. But I realize that I must take my system apart and do heavy maintenance on the sump, the automatic top-off and the automatic water change equipment and try to troubleshoot the problem; a job I am dreading. However, when I do, I will have the opportunity to try to rid my overflow box of aiptaisia. The file fish keeps great control of the pest anemones in the display tank, but the overflow box is absolutely jammed full of the critters.

So my question is...

...since when I lower the water level to stop the drainage from the outflow into the sump (which has to be emptied and removed from the cabinet to get to the ATK compartment) I will have control of the space and the outflow of the outflow box separate from the water in the display tank, is there any liquid that I can put in the outflow box that can kill the aiptaisia and the cells that I have heard will be shed with any manipulation of the creatures such as a high strength hydrogen peroxide or vinegar, etc?

I was planning to use a razor blade to scrape as much of the walls of the outflow but the space is pretty small and my hands are not. Also I am not quite sure how I will vacuum out the outflow box, maybe some kind of cheap return pump that I can afford to toss afterward if there is not a really effective, aiptaisia-cell-lethal cleaning fluid that won't forever poison my equipment.

And I did assume that my salinity probe was off at first, but a simple Fluval hydrometer reads exactly the same as the Apex conductivity probe.

Any ideas?

Image is of the tank and cabinet at the time of setup...very back left corner is where the ATK sensors and the return pump lives:

 

[bradleym]

After scraping out everything big, mix kalkwasser with RO water until it is a paste. Apply liberally to all surfaces using a syringe, popsicle stick, etc. For best effect do this while the surfaces are exposed but still wet. After 10 minutes, rinse with RO water and remove the water until it is all visually clean. Make sure none of the paste ever touches anything you care about, or gets into the tank during this process. Any residual kalk may temporarily bump your alkalinity and pH, but that's it.

P.S. I use Mrs. Wages Picking Lime, it works the same as kalkwasser in this case.

P.P.S. This will literally kill anything it touches if you use enough of it, but diluted it is completely reef safe. I've used it in my tank and then just stirred it into the water column at the end of the 10 minutes, but I have a bigger system, and won't be doing an entire box at once.

 

[Doctorgori]

I had this issue before, what I did was shut off the valve & the return pump and fill the overflow with very warm fresh water for a hour or so, then drain the overflow box output to a bucket
Edit add: “very warm” = comfortably “bath water” warm…maybe 100F ( go by feel)
so long as it is not too hot to damage plastic, seams or glass
…you can also “pre treat” with a squirt water bottle or hypo filled with vinegar ( if you can manage to fit your hand back there)

 

[sg88]

I had this issue before, what I did was shut off the valve & the return pump and fill the overflow with very warm fresh water for a hour or so, then drain the overflow box output to a bucket
Edit add: “very warm” = comfortably “bath water” warm…maybe 100F ( go by feel)
so long as it is not too hot to damage plastic, seams or glass
…you can also “pre treat” with a squirt water bottle or hypo filled with vinegar ( if you can manage to fit your hand back there)

Almost seems too simple. Will the hot water even kill off the fragments that notoriously can regrow into complete specimens?

 

[Koty]

IMO, Aiptasia is like algae: If in the right place, it is just another filter feeder that cleans the water. I have it all over my overflow and refuge:

 

[Doctorgori]

Almost seems too simple. Will the hot water even kill off the fragments that notoriously can regrow into complete specimens?

I know it seems obvious but that’s about the only solution. The physical limitations of the overflows dimensions won’t allow angles to deal with the individual aptasias ….
…aptasias are tough but the “spores” or whatever won’t survive in a 100F freshwater bath for very long …
whatever you do don’t make the water so hot as to compromise the overflows integrity but I’d wager 100-ish should be within material limits…

 

[Gtinnel]

Also for getting the water back out of the overflow a bucket head vacuum, or any kind of wet/dry shop vac will make it easy just to suck the water back out.