The BEST eradicator of the evil Aiptasia Anemone!

THE MOST successful way to eradicate aiptasia anemones?

  • Aiptasia X

    Votes: 89 11.2%
  • Peppermint Shrimp

    Votes: 161 20.2%
  • Hand Removal

    Votes: 16 2.0%
  • Laser

    Votes: 12 1.5%
  • Superglue

    Votes: 25 3.1%
  • Berghia Nudibranch

    Votes: 143 17.9%
  • Rock Removal and clean

    Votes: 17 2.1%
  • Lemon Juice

    Votes: 12 1.5%
  • F-Aiptasia

    Votes: 64 8.0%
  • Kalk Injection

    Votes: 32 4.0%
  • Filefish

    Votes: 68 8.5%
  • Copperband Butterfly Fish

    Votes: 64 8.0%
  • Other Livestock (please explain in a post)

    Votes: 16 2.0%
  • Other Product (please explain in the thread)

    Votes: 12 1.5%
  • I've had no success

    Votes: 67 8.4%

  • Total voters
    798

Rukk

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So how are you going to shoot at aiptasians in the back of the tank, under rock work, attached to corals ect....
I suppose it may not be a perfect solution, but if I am not seeing some problem then I don't know that that bothers me. If I can see it in the tank, I can hit it with the laser or stand a very likely chance of doing so. Just need a straight line shot with about maybe 3/16" clearance around. You can certainly laser it off of a coral, perhaps with some touch without damage. Or, the coral takes damage at the one location where it got burned and recovers. I fried the edge of an SPS to kill some of the black stuff off it and it grew right back. My meteor shower I laser to control its growth attempts to grow back after some time and I laser it again....

May not be as effective in a very large tank, but it may, not sure of that.

Your mileage may vary.
 
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Terry Le

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I suppose it may not be a perfect solution, but if I am not seeing some problem then I don't know that that bothers me. If I can see it in the tank, I can hit it with the laser or stand a very likely chance of doing so. Just need a straight line shot with about maybe 3/16" clearance around. You can certainly laser it off of a coral, perhaps with some touch without damage. Or, the coral takes damage at the one location where it got burned and recovers. I fried the edge of an SPS to kill some of the black stuff off it and it grew right back. My meteor shower I laser to control its growth attempts to grow back after some time and I laser it again....

May not be as effective in a very large tank, but it may, not sure of that.

Your mileage may vary.
Cool
 

Buckster

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Different experiences for everyone. I've used peppermint shrimp in one tank and eradicated them. I then removed them from the 32 bio cube and put them in the DT. Just bought 3 more today for the qt. I can't remove the two in the 180 as that would be like finding a needle in a hay stack.
 

Charlie C

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I voted peppermint shrimp. Tried Aptasia-X first, for a few months. It will kill Aptasia but the issue is we never could find all of them. So they came back. We ordered peppermint shrimp from both Algae Barn and Live Aquaria that were advertised as the kind that would eat Aptasia. Within a few days all of the Aptasia were gone, except the ones in the overflows. We’be treated those in the overflows twice with Aptasia-X and so far they have not returned over the last week.
 

Butcher333

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Hand removal if in crushed coral sand bed.
Otherwise the only thing I know that works well is a blowtorch. Remove rock and pencil torch the sucker. This way everything on the rock is fine. It’s pretty quick. If it’s next to something I might scrape it and dig it out.
Every once in a while I find a baby. There’s probably one in my sump somewhere just making babies.
if in the right spot, feed it and putty over it to encase it.
Everything else just seems to spread it.
 

rusty hannon

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I've tried many methods , peppermint shrimp and bergia but found out the shrimp eat the bergia. My wife s tank is clean but don't believe there is any sure way of keeping them out. So when I purchased my live rock i Knew I'd have some so apastisa x A file fish and a copperband have rid me of them. If or when they come back I'll do the same
 

peffy03

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my 150 was overrun

tried aptasia x, resulted in more aptasia as I inevitably destroyed some to create others.. then i bought nudis, they didn't duplicate fast enough because pods eat the nudi eggs.. then i bought peppermint and started seeing progress.. then i bought a file fish, now all the aptasia is gone and the file fish ate a bunch of by zoanthids, so hes in quarantine and the peppermint are still in the tank.

what i learned was to buy peppermint at the start of the infection.
 

ca1ore

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If you are willing to concede certain corals/zoas then a predatory fish is the most sustainable option. Plenty to choose from. My personal favorite is the asfur angel, though emperor or regal will work too. Need a big enough tank of course. I just lost interest in lasers, aip-x, chiseling, etc.
 

Treefer32

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O..M..G!!! That has to be the worst invasion I have seen! I think because there were so many in that first pic I didn't even see them at first. Then my eyes focused and that's when I said O..M..G!!
A couple larger tank pictures. This is about 1 month after I got the copperband. So, the sand bed and easy to get at aiptasia was getting better already. This is not the worst. The sand bed was almost as covered as the rocks in this picture. All those rocks are void of all algae and all aiptasia now!
IMG_20200121.jpg
 

Squidward

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Butterfly fish... Welp my Double Saddleback destroyed all of my aptasia and sadly destroyed other corals as well.
 

QTI

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Tried lemon juice, Aiptasia X, laser, none of them really work. Bought 3 copperband butterflies in sequence and all died - they are difficult to keep in my tank somehow.

Bought some peppermint shrimps and eradicated them in weeks.

Bought a flame hawkfish (my mistake for not checking that it loves shrimpies for main course) which ate all my peppermint shrimps, and the aiptasia came back.

Returned the hawkfish to LFS and bought some more peppermint shrimps, aiptasia gone again.
 

Auquanut

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I have kept peppermint shrimp for a long time. They seem to keep the numbers of aptaisia down, but wouldn't eat the larger ones. I added 2 matted file fish about a year and a half ago and between the two I haven't seen any in the DT for over a year. The thing with the file fish is that they didn't seem to be interested in aptaisia for a month or 2. Then suddenly they wiped it all out. I guess I'm lucky, because they don't seem to bother any of my corals.

Oh yeah. The file fish wiped out my mojanos from day one. Bonus!
 

alain Bouchard

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never had an issue with aptaisia, but had a similar one with BTA...tried a dozen different solution which all failed, was about to let them win, but tried aptaisia-x and is working wonder on BTA. So, I voted for it, even though I never tried on actual aptaisia :)
 
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revhtree

revhtree

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WOW I'm a bit surprised that Peppermint shrimp is slightly edging out the nudibranchs so far!
 

pasquale petrovia

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I thin kalkwasser with white vinegar and target feed the suckers with a pipette. Works mostly first time. Occasionally 2 shots to kill it
 

halfmoon61

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Tried peppermint, aptasia eating filefish and neither eats aptasia. So I bit the bullet and bought nudi, 4 mo in contacted the vendor for advice, be patient and one day you'll wake up and all the aptasia will be gone. 4 mo later nothing but more aptasia. Tried some more nudi from another vendor, 6 days in and we'll see how it goes. Trying to find a Chelmon marginalis but they're scarcer than hen's teeth.
 

hans4811

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Had a bad case of Mojanos, like about a 100 of them. F-Aiptaisia worked so long as they were on level surface. Killed one of my RBTA from overspray..which was a bonus !!

For the remaining of them I just used a mechanic's pic...like this... ...a dental pick would work the same if you know a dentist !
 

Mastering the art of locking and unlocking water pathways: What type of valves do you have on your aquarium plumbing?

  • Ball valves.

    Votes: 66 51.6%
  • Gate valves.

    Votes: 67 52.3%
  • Check valves.

    Votes: 32 25.0%
  • None.

    Votes: 29 22.7%
  • Other.

    Votes: 9 7.0%
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