Stay Away from Aiptasia killing lasers!
- Thread starter Marzvt
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I always thought lasers were a bad idea for pest control in a reef. There is a whole list of safety precautions to take for humans to the point of goggles for anyone in the room, but for the fish in the system you just hope they stay away? How are the concerns with reflections in human eyes not shared with the livestock? I asked Melve's reef about this as he is a big laser fan for killing pests, however didn't really get a very satisfactory answer other than make sure the fish are not close by but he stresses upmost safety for humans. If something is so dangerous for people, why not share that concern with livestock. There seem to be other effective control options.
Berghia are great if you have a true infestation problem. If you only have a few aiptasia, a) they often have a hard time finding the aiptasia, even when you place them right at the base of one. b) Too few aiptasia won't create a breeding population of berghia. c) They rather expensive. d) I'm not a big fan of living creatures only to have them starve to death when their work is done.
...and if you get another aiptasia popping up a year later, you've got to wait until things get ugly before the berghia solution will be effective.
BigAl07
Active Member
Unless the organism can withstand instant boiling/burning of it's tissue the laser should take care of it as long as you "zap" all viable tissue.
The reflection is fairly "easy" to control by the operator. In terms of LASER Safety: You don't shoot long distances, you try to always shoot as straight on as you can (reflection comes back at you from the glass not bouncing around the tank), and you've got to be ever mindful of anyone else in the room and of course where the fish in the tank are. Actually I don't use a laser with anyone else in the room due to potential eye damage should the reflection happen to hit their eye.
I've used a "freaking laser beam" (see what I did there? LOL) to kill many in-tank pests and always with great success. The only "mishap" I have had was when the reflection hit my own t-shirt and instantly went through and burned a nice blister on my own chest. I need to look and find that t-shirt as I intentionally kept it as a memento of my lack of attention.
Sense of nature
Active Member
Some of us have fish that eat the Nudis & it would not be practical
No I never as I had to wait about 6 weeks for my lfs to get the correct Peppermint shrimps into stock and I never had a new aiptasia or any aiptasia regrow in that time it's just a matter of hitting them right and constantly changing the batteries every few minutes even though there is still enough power in the batteries to run the laser doesn't mean that the power is enough to burn the aiptasia enough to prevent spore dispersal.
Lousybreed
Well-Known Member
Agreed. Also you really want to chance your own eye sight. Or even worse your kids?
jd371
Valuable Member
I have fish that I thought would eat the Nudis but took the chance anyway and it worked out and I was Aptasia free in a few months. My biggest fear was the Melanurus because he's ravenous and will eat anything that moves, Falco Hawkfish and CBB were the other two I was concerened about. The Berghia are nocturnal so before I bought them I observed the tank during the night to see what the fish were doing. The Melanurus goes into the sand before the lights are out and is the last one out in the morning so he wouldn't be a problem, the Falco just stays perched on a rock for most of the night and the CBB stays in the top corner chilling through the night and both are not in a hunting mode.
Unless you have a fish that hunt during the night I wouldn't worry too much about them. If you have Peppermint shrimp (natural predator of the berghia) or crabs would be a concern though. I just have snails and a Fire and Cleaner shrimp in my tank.
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