War of the Reefs: Have you ever battled a tank invader?

Have you ever battled a tank invader?

  • Yes, Apitasia!

    Votes: 258 71.5%
  • Yes, Asterina Starfish!

    Votes: 111 30.7%
  • Yes, Dinoflagellats!

    Votes: 191 52.9%
  • Yes, Majano Anemones!

    Votes: 49 13.6%
  • Yes, Flatworms!

    Votes: 108 29.9%
  • Yes, Cyanobacteria!

    Votes: 227 62.9%
  • Yes, Hydroids!

    Votes: 48 13.3%
  • Yes, Hair Algae!

    Votes: 239 66.2%
  • Yes, Vermatide Snails!

    Votes: 158 43.8%
  • Yes, invasive coral!

    Votes: 57 15.8%
  • Yes, other nuisance algae!

    Votes: 144 39.9%
  • Yes, other invertebrates!

    Votes: 42 11.6%
  • No, thankfully!

    Votes: 14 3.9%
  • Other (please explain).

    Votes: 18 5.0%

  • Total voters
    361

Cichlid Dad

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Number 7 Hand GIF


Ya seven off the list. I will tell you each time I learned. Now when something pops up I shrug my shoulders no big deal.
 

claudio Pacheco

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Tive dinoflagelado no ultimo mês e confesso que quase pirei, achei que perderia tudo. Mas consegui achar um método que resolveu o problema e tudo ficou intacto, não perdi nenhum animal . Hoje meu reef esta equilibrado e feliz e rumo a maior idade. Meu reef tem só 5 meses tenho topico aqui aberto.
 

Paul B

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I voted "other" and it was invasive, photosynthetic sponges which I stupidly added a few years ago. The devil stuff took over my tank killing most of my hard corals and many soft corals including very old and large gorgonians.

Eliminating it was a horror because when it is cut, it emits a goey white substance that kills other corals and some inverts.

I had it for years and as a last resort I removed the rocks that had the sponge which was all the rocks in the light in my 6' tank. In many cases I had to cut my corals off the rock and using a wire brush over salt water I brushed off all the sponge I could as it was stuck to the rocks and not something you could just peel off.

Then I left all that rock outside in the winter in the cold for maybe a month tokill any remaining sponge.

That was a year ago and so far, I have not seen any sponge return.

It's the bluish stuff over the box fish



Under the Watchmans


The gobi is resting on it


It was all over the tank



Too bad it was invasive as it was kind of nice looking, almost like blue Montipora.

So now I have been trying to grow back all my corals that were damaged or killed

You can see a lot of it here.
 

Barncat

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Battle tank invaders? Yep, that's been most of my reefing life!

1. My first tank battle was cyanobacteria (which was honestly kinda fascinating and more fun to remove by hand then hair algae.) I didn't really win this battle; the problem disappeared on its own when I was forced to upgrade from my original Fluval 13.5 gallon to a 30 gallon. I guess dilution was the solution with that one!

2. Aiptasia; this fight is ongoing. I tried adopting a molly miller blenny but this was before I realized that acclimation boxes were a thing; I saw her once then never again. Next I tried a peppermint shrimp (could only afford one at the time,) and it vanished but the aiptasia stayed. Finally, I tried joe's juice and managed to kill one but I don't think my technique was great with my being a noob because all it did was weaken the others. Thankfully my aiptasia are not rampant; I only have two or three of them, but one is now quite large so it's time that I made an attempt on its life again to at least shrink the lil' jerk. So far, my best tactic has been smothering them with aquarium epoxy, so that shall be my next murder attempt on the big aiptasia; just gonna jam its hole full of epoxy lol. I'm gonna need epoxy for upcoming stuff anyway...

3. Next came parasites including accidentally introduced flatworms, oh boy, but thankfully I didn't have any acropora for the flatworms to eat (I think that's what they were, acropora eating flatworms.) I introduced bumblebee snails for the other worms but the flatworms presumably starved to death since they were not present in my reef for very long (also my ocellaris clownfish helpfully and curiously tried to help by eating them then promptly spitting them back out because apparently they tasted bad haha. The flatworms survived their momentary adventure in my clownfishes' mouths sadly lol.) I later adopted a sixline wrasse and I haven't seen hide nor scale of any parasites since!

4. Non-Pulsing Xenia; kiled my bicolour candy cane coral after I noticed too late that it was being smothered by it. I tried to rescue it to the sandbed but it didn't make it but I did manage to save its mint counterpart; I have now mostly irradicated the non-pulsing xenia except for the clump that my tuxedo urchin likes to wear as a feather boa. (It would be cruel to remove such an incredible fashionista's favourite and most glorious accessory.) Hopefully I can replace the bicolour candy cane someday soon!

5. Hair algae; my ongoing battle but not for long as I just purchased a used 125 gallon to upgrade my tank to so there are tangs in my future! Yippeee! In the course of this current battle though I have adopted a tuxedo urchin who is useless against the hair algae, many snails, and, lastly, a bicolour blenny, who has also been useless against the hair algae lol. But, I have learned that I love sea urchins! They're extremely funny little dudes and worth keeping even if mine doesn't seem to eat hair algae at all.

Also I have astarina stars but those are welcome cleanup crew (at least for now.) If they ever do become annoying I will simply cull their numbers by hand; for now they honestly charm me.❤️
 

WhatCouldGoWrong71

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This makes about the 12th gorilla crab I have pulled out. I’m on a serious hunt for these. I thought I got most. But I still am finding them. I love wet gulf rock, and this is just part of it. I have no issues with having to search these out. I just know how big they can get. I found one in a tank I recently broke down, I was amazed at how big it had gotten since I put live rock in that system.







An annoying but unfortunately familiar part of reefing is the part of it where unwanted invaders
cause a ruckus on the reef. These invaders can come in various shapes and forms, with some being easily removed and others...well, not so much. Whether it be an extreme overgrowth of nuisance algae, fast-growing coral, or a hitchhiker that seems to have multiplied by a million overnight, we will all face this battle at some point in our reefing journey...

Have you ever battled a tank invader?

You and your Aiptasia are having a faceoff:
war of the worlds GIF
space invaders request GIF by hoppip
 

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WhatCouldGoWrong71

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This makes about the 12th gorilla crab I have pulled out. I’m on a serious hunt for these. I thought I got most. But I still am finding them. I love wet gulf rock, and this is just part of it. I have no issues with having to search these out. I just know how big they can get. I found one in a tank I recently broke down, I was amazed at how big it had gotten since I put live rock in that system.
Yes I use my majano wand as a spear like in Moby Richard.
 

crazyfishmom

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What kind of crab is that?
Florida Stone Crab. Crazy strong guy I battled for months. By the time I caught him the carapace was about 3 inches across. Here is one of his claw from a molt. It was also about 3 inches.

IMG_0611.jpeg
 

Imrahilwjz

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Aiptasia. I have a Kleinii butterfly in the display. I can see a few aiptasia here and there but for the most part they eventually disappear. Anything in the sump that our white spotted hermit can reach gets cleaned off. My sons and nephews like to use our majano wand to get the ones that are out of his reach.
 

NinjaSushi

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Cyano and fireworms. Luckily, Fritz cyano/slime out works great. Sadly on the other hands, those stupid fireworms killed and ate both my Diamond d Goby and Scooter Blenny.

When I finally caught them I enjoyed putting salt on them and leaves them outside in subfreezing temperatures to die. I am now at war with them.

What makes it so hard is that I had nine Diamond Gobies jump out of my aquarium before I finally had the tenth one settle in and absolutely enjoy his time. Nine of them I had to lose before the tenth one was murdered by these thieves!! :p
 

Ben Mccue

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This rock is from my old tank, I tried to get rid of the vermatids on the corals by quarantining in a couple of 5 gallon aquariums and transferring them every 3 days to a new tank, scraping and dipping them once a week. I was trying to keep them out of the new 180 but it did not work, I see them starting to creep up. I just ordered 30 bumblebee snails, I'll have to get in there and start crushing the tubes. It's not too bad right now but I don't want to end up like the picture.



20240324_154146.jpg
 

Faurek

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Hair algae is what I really don't like, invertebrates and aiptasia I have inserted on purpose, love asterinas.
 

Jackal799

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I checked 7. Vermatids are the worst IMO since there really isn't a natural predator that I'm aware of other than bumblebee snails which didn't do much for me but I have thousands of the little nasties.
Try fenben laced fish foods (they sell them for angel fish). Last episode of reefbum got me thinking about the mechanism of action (I’m a RN of 15 years and quite familiar with medications in this category) and it’s known to be toxic to snails in the aquarium (I believe their digestive tracks can’t handle it, could be wrong though). The thinking behind it is that you grind the food up and when those slimey jerks put out their Satan web, they will catch some of the food and ingest it. It makes sense in theory and if one target feeds them it should avoid desirable snails eating it.
 

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