Suggestions for nuking aiptasia in an humongous tank

[Broutilde]

Hello there,
I'm pretty new to saltwater and am looking for suggestions.
I have freshwater tanks at home and a humongous reef tank at work,which made me want to set up my own 25 gallons at home too.
Anyways we are hiring someone for the maintenance at work, but the guy has definitely not been doing a great job recently, and my friend whose been reefing for years pointed some red flags about his work. The guy brought back aiptasia on some frags a few months ago, and hasn't been trying to take care of the aiptasia plague that followed. We got a filefish and peppermint shrimps that took care of most of the small ones but won't touch the 2 inches ones.
I'm planning to take over maintenance of that 500 gallons + and am trying find solutions to control aiptasia. My biggest issue is that the tank is so big and so deep that I can't reach the bottom where the big anemone pests are. I can't pull the rocks. I can reach them to nuke them with Aiptasia X. I've heard about the "majano wand", do you think it would be a good temporary solution to nuke the big ones? Or do you have any other option that I can should consider?
Thanks
Elsa

 

[Johniejumbo]

I’ve heard good things about f-aiptasia. Never used it but it may be something to look at.

 

[bblumberg]

I have tried so many methods for Aiptasia elimination. All work to some degree: matted filefish, peppermint shrimp (30 of them purchased at different times from Algae Barn), Klein's' butterfly, and laser. As you noticed, the big aiptasia, and those that were out of reach deep in rocks survived no matter what the treatment. Then I was able to finally successfully get a copperbanded butterfly in my tank. Now I can't see aiptasia anywhere, even the ones that were down deep in the rock crevices. I had the same experience with my frag tank - aiptasia popped up here and there and a new CBB got rid of them quickly.

Having said that, I lost MANY CBBs in quarantine. So many that I finally gave up. Then I read PaulB's thread about not quarantining them and got the same advice from a LFS who had some for sale. I bought 2 and did an experiment. One went straight into my 150g reef after acclimation. The other went into a 10g quarantine tank with live rock and a well-established sponge filter. The one in my 150g did well and is now large. The one in the quarantine tank ate well for a few weeks, then died. I got a new one for my frag tank and popped it right in after acclimation. Still doing well 3 months later and is quite the aggressive eater.

 

[Cathics88]

I've seen peppermint shrimp clean up Aiptasia, as a natural solution. There are certain fish that also dont mind munching them down. I'm not sure this is a common practice still though as there is no guarantee they will feed on them though I have seen them marketed as "aiptasia eating shrimp". I've tried aiptasia x myself with mixed results. Good luck with your battle!

 

[BeejReef]

another thread on a similar topic also from today

A good way to kill aiptasia in a fallow/cycling tank?

I'm going to be starting up a new tank, and I found a local source of affordable live rock, but it has some aiptasia. The idea of starting a new tank with aiptasia in it already seems... counterproductive. Is there a good way to kill the aiptasia with no livestock in the tank?

www.reef2reef.com

 

[Malifry97]

people use those SUPER strong blue lasers to kill the aiptasia. That May work for a large tank because you dont have to be in the tank

 

[Kresimir_72]

In my 90 g tank I use few wundermani and all is just fine....after few weeks all is clean....

 

[Broutilde]

In my 90 g tank I use few wundermani and all is just fine....after few weeks all is clean....

We have wundermanii and file fish in the tank, they've been taking care of the small aiptasia but not the big ones. They've been there for a month now.
I guess I'll have to put my swimsuit on to reach the bigger ones...

 

[Broutilde]

Thanks for all your reply! A lot of the solution you proposed are great but not doable as I can't reach the bottom of the tank (can barely reach the middle) and don't have access to those big anemones. Filefish is doing a great job on the small ones (and looks ***** cute), and I'm sure that the peppermint shrimps help. I'll give them more time to clean up and will probably try the laser option.

 

[Kresimir_72]

We have wundermanii and file fish in the tank, they've been taking care of the small aiptasia but not the big ones. They've been there for a month now.
I guess I'll have to put my swimsuit on to reach the bigger ones...

So last option is copper butterfly but he can be problem for feeding, attacking invertebrates....

 

[biophilia]

One thing that helps with large tanks is a larger medical syringe attached to a long length of rigid airline tubing. It works best if you mix a thicker paste of kalkwasser than would normally be used with a needle syringe. Once you get the hang of it you can trickle the paste slowly over the larger Aiptasia without them snapping back into their holes. Leave the kalk mounds overnight and then siphon out in the morning.

 

[Broutilde]

One thing that helps with large tanks is a larger medical syringe attached to a long length of rigid airline tubing. It works best if you mix a thicker paste of kalkwasser than would normally be used with a needle syringe. Once you get the hang of it you can trickle the paste slowly over the larger Aiptasia without them snapping back into their holes. Leave the kalk mounds overnight and then siphon out in the morning.

I have a tool just like that and tried with Kalkwasser two weeks ago but probably did a crappy job. I'll try again!

 

[bblumberg]

So last option is copper butterfly but he can be problem for feeding, attacking invertebrates....

My copperbands are quite well behaved both in display and in frag tank. However, the same cannot be said for the Klein's butterfly in the display tank that is a serious LPS muncher (along with flame angel and coral beauty angel). The corals that these 3 had eaten down to the skeleton in spots (2 nice trachyphyllia, and 3 rainbow acans) are recovering nicely in the frag tank with the other CBB.

I think that a couple of CBBs cruising around a huge tank would be quite beautiful as well as functional.

 

[Daniel@R2R]

Berghia nudibranchs are the only sure way I know of. Peppermints, filefish, and CBB can all do it, but they're hit and miss.

 

[El_Guapo13]

Berghia nudibranchs are the only sure way I know of. Peppermints, filefish, and CBB can all do it, but they're hit and miss.

+1 on Berghias. I know people often worry about them getting eaten by fish (particularly wrasse), but if you get alot I feel it won't be an issue, especially since once they feed on Aiptasia, the Berghia will absorb the nematocysts from the Aiptasia into their own body to use for self dedense, so they should be able to defend themselves from most fish, as I assume most fish won't like getting stung.

 

[Broutilde]

Berghia nudibranchs are the only sure way I know of. Peppermints, filefish, and CBB can all do it, but they're hit and miss.

I definitely thought about it but the tank is so big that I would need A LOT of Berghias and those are pretty expensive.

 

[mborn]

You buy a breeding population of Berghias, not the amount to do the job. Once they start breeding and eating aiptasia, their population increases to the size of your tank and infestation problem. For me, I started with 15 very small Berghias. Within about 2 months my tank was crawling with them, too many to count. The original tiny ones had grown to over an inch in size. About a month after that all the aiptasia in my tank were gone. Even the large aiptasia I didn’t think could get eaten were wiped out. It doesn’t happen immediately, but once they start growing and breeding, they wipe them out quickly.