Large aiptasia

[Shoki]

I have a rock of pulsing xenia that’s doing well. It has two large Aiptasia, one in the back and one in the front.

This Aiptasia is a few months old i’m sure. I’ve tried Aiptasia-x on it in a different tank and swear it comes back bigger every time.

Since i don’t have enough Aiptasia to utilize a Nudi, not sure which approach is best. Also, when i put my syringe around the head, the anemone immediately retreats back into the rock.

Does vinegar in a needle syringe work?

 

[brandon429]

Nope. If you want it gone do surgery

Take out the rock

Press a clean flathead screwdriver hard up under it and dig it the heck out, those can wreck your tank. Leave a divot mark in the live rock you dug it out from, dig under it and remove its tissue. The Xenia will grow back around the cleaned spot

 

[Shoki]

Nope. If you want it gone do surgery

Take out the rock

Press a clean flathead screwdriver hard up under it and dig it the heck out, those can wreck your tank. Leave a divot mark in the live rock you dug it out from, dig under it and remove its tissue. The Xenia will grow back around the cleaned spot

Thank you !!

 

[brandon429]

If you go through with it I need the pics please

For 2.5 years I’ve been trying to build an aiptasia work thread using this method, but 100% of the anemone owners want to keep them and take chances. I watched one fella purposefully refuse surgery until his entire reef had about 500 of them and was permanently wrecked. Something about these anemones takes control over the mind of the tank owner and forces them to hold on to the animal a bit longer

Even if the Xenia didn’t make it, it’s easy to find cheap Xenia frags for sale but it’s not easy to beat aiptasia allowed to procreate endlessly

 

[brandon429]

Here’s one guy who wasn’t playing around

Build Thread - JD's 90 gallon mixed reef

*90 gallon mixed reef* Ruby Trigger 36 sump Reef Octopus 150 skimmer 2- EcoTech Radion XR15 pro Kessil H80 Refugium Light EcoTech Vectra return pump Icecap gyre Lifeguard media reactor This tank has been up and running for almost 4 years now. Its gone through some periods of neglect as other...

www.reef2reef.com

Those are invasive rhodactis, not aips but it’s the same thing. He dug those rascals out and gone, not playing around.

 

[vetteguy53081]

I have a rock of pulsing xenia that’s doing well. It has two large Aiptasia, one in the back and one in the front.

This Aiptasia is a few months old i’m sure. I’ve tried Aiptasia-x on it in a different tank and swear it comes back bigger every time.

Since i don’t have enough Aiptasia to utilize a Nudi, not sure which approach is best. Also, when i put my syringe around the head, the anemone immediately retreats back into the rock.

Does vinegar in a needle syringe work?

You can keep it simple and use a syringe or pipette, inject either lemon juice or better yet. . kalkwasser powder mixed with tank water into a paste the consistency of toothpaste and inject into the very center core and it will melt away
Other option is a Kleini Butterfly BUT must be the bluehead- NOT the all yellow version. The yellow will go after coral too but bluehead as pictured will eat aptasia like candy, then eat all dry and frozen food offered, colorful, friendly and stays small. I will note that a couple of persons who got the blue had their kleini nip zoa. if so- easy sell, or place in sump as aptasia have likely made it down there already

 

[smitten with ocean life]

If you go through with it I need the pics please

For 2.5 years I’ve been trying to build an aiptasia work thread using this method, but 100% of the anemone owners want to keep them and take chances. I watched one fella purposefully refuse surgery until his entire reef had about 500 of them and was permanently wrecked. Something about these anemones takes control over the mind of the tank owner and forces them to hold on to the animal a bit longer

Even if the Xenia didn’t make it, it’s easy to find cheap Xenia frags for sale but it’s not easy to beat aiptasia allowed to procreate endlessly

very interested in this subject.i think ive tried all methods. except for the above fish thats next on my list! what do you do with rocks that are covered with coral as well as aiptasia? and the aiptasia on and in the overflows?

 

[Sir Kon Salty Sox]

I had two of the blue head kleini. Both loved aiptasia, one ended up liking LPS and zoas. Moved to the sump, and the other stayed in display. it was 50/50 but they are fun fish to watch swim with their tiny little fins . Was not easy to source them however, and you must make sure you’re getting the right fish

 

[brandon429]

And we must make sure to quarantine fish before adding, or there’s 100 example threads in the disease forum of that action killing a whole tank of fish. The good thing about surgical removal: can’t cause disease in the entire system


It is easy, a 2 second search effort, to find injection attempts using any concoction causing the aiptasia to fragment, wiping out the tank with a hundred new anemones


By following the masses’ recommendation, we get disease and tank takeovers. But by doing surgery, you win

Regarding how to get aiptasia handled after allowing it to fester across the whole system: pretend there’s a monetary award involved to get motivated.

Let’s say ten anemones were on my overflow and someone would give me eighty thousand dollars to make them gone in one pass.

I wouldn’t pick a butterfly fish randomly and add it due to disease risks and the countless searchable threads where the fish simply didn’t work, that repeat of the popular method could cost me 80k

For 80K I would get my shaving double edge razor, press it hard on the plastic area and remove it off like a dermatologist removes a mole, and for kicks I’d leave a small divot in the plastic because I dug that hard. No water, the tank would be drained, animals held in totes like the clean example link above where the man removed 200+ anemones in one pass using rasping tools


We have a link above to fixing a large reef via disassembly surgery.


For eighty grand, or to save my own reef tank, I would not play around with these animals.

 

[brandon429]

The masses will not tell us of counter studies involving disease risks by using fish for aiptasia control

Biosecurity

A short introduction to aquarium biosecurity

www.reef2reef.com

Guess how many searchable threads there are for brandon429 harming someone’s reef tank = nada

Get motivated, do the surgery. If the tank is large and the action was delayed, then get ready for ten hours of surgery, next time don’t wait and don’t do what the masses advised on anemone #1.

When someone sees 1 aiptasia in a tank, they must then envision being at the end of the road with 400 of them from following popular recommends, like what searches show, too daunting to take any action and the anemones in 100% control of our investment.

Look at the first aiptasia like that, and then do something decisive.


In the opening pic of this thread, that Xenia rock wouldn’t even be in my tank. It would be healing from surgery in a holding system that wasn’t my main display. You can’t get more decisive than to not have that whole rock in the tank.

aiptasia anchored down inside a rock crevice and it’s tough to get to? You’d be surprised how hard I/you/we/they can push a screwdriver into a rock crevice with the right motivation. Heck I could band saw a rock in half, throw out the infected side and put the good half back. People who simply cannot be beaten by an anemone will not play around

 

[OrionN]

While CBB are not easy fish to get established, they are beautiful and are 100% effective for me and not bother any of my other reef inhabitants.

 

[exnisstech]

Just inject kalk paste into the hole it retreats into. Full it completely and you should be good to go.