raising aiptasia?

[jtf74]

My copperband eats mysis readily but no brine which gets spit back out, loves black and white worms, small earth worms, won't touch mussels or clams, frozen bits or in the shell. But it does this very special thing when there's aiptaisa to be eaten. It extends all its spiny top fins up and freezes right before an instant lunge. My guess is this helps it strike faster against the quick withdraw of the anemone though even when I drop one in it hits it the same way while its floating around helpless. Anyhow, I've got them in my fuge growing and in my smaller 55 gallon so I can scrape them periodically and drop them in, but I was wondering what I could do to encourage the growth of aiptasia in a separate system, as the worms are a pain, and I feel like the aiptasia is what these fish are meant to be eating.

 

[Pkunk35]

Omg just isolate them and FEED them

maybe put aiptasia stop on them so they create 100 babies from the dead body haha I’m kind of kidding but kind of not

also do you have a vid of that striking cooperband? It’s def one of my fav fish but haven’t had a system one could live in for a very long time

 

[ShepherdReefer]

I know of others who raise these, what most call them, pest Aiptasia. I don't have them anymore because our filefish consumed all of them. Now the filefish only eats what we give her/him.

 

[jtf74]

Omg just isolate them and FEED them

maybe put aiptasia stop on them so they create 100 babies from the dead body haha I’m kind of kidding but kind of not

also do you have a vid of that striking cooperband? It’s def one of my fav fish but haven’t had a system one could live in for a very long time

I'll try and get a video of it doing that. Not sure if it will strike again in mid float but when attached almost every time. I love this fish. I practically sold my 3 year old yellow tang for nothing so it could rule the tank. Beyond feeding I was wondering what I could do to the water quality to get rapid growth/multiplication? I've read phosphates and nitrogen on the higher side.

 

[biophilia]

Since aiptasia are capable of reproducing via pedal laceration a quick way to increase their numbers is to chop them up. Each cut up piece is capable of landing on substrate and producing a clone of the original animal. I've heard of people even doing it with a blender, but a little razor blade might be less messy (and weird)!

Also, feeding aiptasia brine shrimp nauplii is a good way to see rapid reproduction in my experience...

As for growing conditions, they don't really need light or anything other than food and are tolerant of a wide range of water parameters so just keeping them in a bare tank with no substrate, a trickle filter and occasional water changes might be enough. It would allow you to more easily harvest them.

 

[afboundguy]

I would just feed the crap out of the tank. Those little f#%$$#'s would always multiply in my tank as I'm a heavy feeder...

My copperband eats mysis readily but no brine which gets spit back out, loves black and white worms, small earth worms, won't touch mussels or clams, frozen bits or in the shell. But it does this very special thing when there's aiptaisa to be eaten. It extends all its spiny top fins up and freezes right before an instant lunge. My guess is this helps it strike faster against the quick withdraw of the anemone though even when I drop one in it hits it the same way while its floating around helpless. Anyhow, I've got them in my fuge growing and in my smaller 55 gallon so I can scrape them periodically and drop them in, but I was wondering what I could do to encourage the growth of aiptasia in a separate system, as the worms are a pain, and I feel like the aiptasia is what these fish are meant to be eating.

You mention the worms being a pain. Do you have a white worm culture? I find them to be insanely easy and I was curious why you find them to be a pain? My tank absolutely loves white worms and it's one of the best things I've done for the overall health and wellbeing of my tank...

 

[Mical]

My copperband eats mysis readily but no brine which gets spit back out, loves black and white worms, small earth worms, won't touch mussels or clams, frozen bits or in the shell. But it does this very special thing when there's aiptaisa to be eaten. It extends all its spiny top fins up and freezes right before an instant lunge. My guess is this helps it strike faster against the quick withdraw of the anemone though even when I drop one in it hits it the same way while its floating around helpless. Anyhow, I've got them in my fuge growing and in my smaller 55 gallon so I can scrape them periodically and drop them in, but I was wondering what I could do to encourage the growth of aiptasia in a separate system, as the worms are a pain, and I feel like the aiptasia is what these fish are meant to be eating.

Just irritate them (aiptasia) - I once tried a laser ($15 on Ebay) to kill them and all it did was cause them to multiply into hundreds.

 

[jtf74]

I would just feed the crap out of the tank. Those little f#%$$#'s would always multiply in my tank as I'm a heavy feeder...



You mention the worms being a pain. Do you have a white worm culture? I find them to be insanely easy and I was curious why you find them to be a pain? My tank absolutely loves white worms and it's one of the best things I've done for the overall health and wellbeing of my tank...

I bought the white worms maybe a month ago they seem so slow to reproduce. Washing the soil off the few I have fed was much more effort than stirring up the black worms and dipping them out with a cup. I see online when they reach large populations you can often scrape them off the sides without soil.

I do feed heavily but maybe should target feed them.

 

[jtf74]

Omg just isolate them and FEED them

maybe put aiptasia stop on them so they create 100 babies from the dead body haha I’m kind of kidding but kind of not

also do you have a vid of that striking cooperband? It’s def one of my fav fish but haven’t had a system one could live in for a very long time

So this isn't quite the right side angle to see the best display of it doing this, but here you go. You can still see its fins raised after it turns and spits out the hair algae that the aiptasia was attached to

 

[afboundguy]

I bought the white worms maybe a month ago they seem so slow to reproduce. Washing the soil off the few I have fed was much more effort than stirring up the black worms and dipping them out with a cup. I see online when they reach large populations you can often scrape them off the sides without soil.

I've never had to stir them up and clean them off I just keep my cultures fed well and just need to scrape them off the side with my fingers...

 

[jtf74]

Since aiptasia are capable of reproducing via pedal laceration a quick way to increase their numbers is to chop them up. Each cut up piece is capable of landing on substrate and producing a clone of the original animal. I've heard of people even doing it with a blender, but a little razor blade might be less messy (and weird)!

Also, feeding aiptasia brine shrimp nauplii is a good way to see rapid reproduction in my experience...

As for growing conditions, they don't really need light or anything other than food and are tolerant of a wide range of water parameters so just keeping them in a bare tank with no substrate, a trickle filter and occasional water changes might be enough. It would allow you to more easily harvest them.

Thanks. I’ve got a bunch of brine eggs that I can’t seem to get to grow into maturity so I’ll try some target feeding whats in my refugium . Yes they scrape easily off glass so a separate setup is what I’ll probably do. One day my angel and tang may be more willing to eat the big mysis the cbb gets most of but aiptasia is something none of the other fish want any part of.

 

[ichthyogeek]

White worms: Look into sponge culture/soilless culture! You just need to get a large enough bin (or a large number of smaller bins) so that you can harvest frequently enough once the culture gets up to size. There's also a method where you put some craft mesh on top of the culture, and skim from that instead of straight off of the soil.

Brine eggs to maturity: See this thread. If you can culture phytoplankton, then you can culture brine shrimp!

Aiptasia: have you considered setting up a culture tank? Say, a small 10 gallon tank with a lot of rock in it and a small circulation pump/protein skimmer? Feed the dregs of frozen food to it, and any leftover meaty foods and I'd bet you'd get a nice bloom of aiptasia!

 

[Tamberav]

Side note maybe it I don’t see aiptasia being more nutritious than worms. They are mostly water and no replacement for worms. They eat worms in the wild too so if you are feeding both, continue to do so IMO.