What would your 1st choice be for aiptasia control in a mixed reef?

[Swoody]

While the Bergia Nudi’s are a bit on the spendy side....all I can say is WOW at how quickly they have wiped out my ugly Aiptasia garden!! Very stealthy too! I’ve tried at all hours of the night to catch them at it and all I really see happening is the Aiptasia dissappearing from my rocks! In addition I did nothing special when adding them. Lights were on, all flow at normal operation speeds... after acclimating them I just slowly placed the container on its side on a rock where they could climb out and that’s what they did. Kinda cute lil buggers too!!

 

[wowkingjames]

Berghia Nudibrach will do the job!....

 

[happyhourhero]

I like to shoot myself in the foot as often as possible in my reefing journey. I have a six line so I can’t have the Nudis. I added 4 peppermint shrimp a couple weeks ago and my hawkfish ate them right away. I added a filefish that ate one Aiptasia and then started in on my acros so I took it back. I added a CBB over the weekend and it is eating them but so far my tangs will only let it swim in 1/3 of the tank. Crossing my fingers that it settles in.

 

[Decat]

I have had good luck with Peppermint Shrimp, but my Lionfish started eating them. So, I tried Red Sea Aiptasia-X and it did a great job at first, but it spawned so many small aiptasia that I could not keep up with the new small ones. So, I ordered 8 Berghia Nudibrach, and put them in on Tuesday. As others have said I don't see them, but I have seen 2 strings of eggs in the tank already only 2 days later.

 

[bblumberg]

I have tried many of these options and they all work to different degrees. First was peppermint shrimp, some worked others (most) not. Recently I have gotten a bunch (20) from Algae Barn and these are working VERY well on aiptasia that other fish did not touch. I went from many hundreds in my 150g down to a few large ones in hard to access spots remaining.

Kleins Butterfly. I have 2, one in a 75g and one in a 150g. The fish in 75g is an aiptasia eating machine. That tank had quite a few, but I have not seen any aiptasia in it for a long time. Unfortunately, the Klein's in my 150g appears uninterested; I have seen it picking on LPS but never on aiptasia.

Matted file fish. I have one of these in my 150g. When this fish was in my nanocube, it did a great job of eating aiptasia. However, once I moved the fish to the 150g after breaking down the nanocube, it appears to eat every other type of food but aiptasia.

I have never been able to get a copperbanded butterfly out of quarantine before it died, even when I observed the fish to be eating. Most have not lasted beyond the 15 day warranty that Saltwaterfish and Liveaquaria give. I just bought 4 small ones and put them in a 10g with chloroquine phosphate and have been feeding with live baby brine shrimp and mysis shrimp. It is a week now and they are still alive and eating. Fingers crossed. Whichever ones make it out of quarantine (i.e., last a month) will go into the 150 g to add to the aiptasia eating crew.

I read that scats (brackish water fish) can be adapted to SW and will eat aiptasis. I bought one but it died in quarantine, so no data available.

Aiptasia-X killed the original aiptasia I found in my 75g but led to a subsequent huge outbreak of aiptasia elsewhere in the tank. I am a fan of biological treatment because this usually continues and requires not so much effort on our part....

 

[davocean]

One thing I'll say about aptasia X, while it does not wipe out a heavy infestation, and only seems to make the aptasia reproduce numerous apts in the place of the apt you hit, it does mush the larger aptasias a bit, and this does seem to entice a fish that seems only mildly interested.
So I've used it to break down the larger aptasias and let CBB's that might have been iffy to go at it, and once they begin to get the taste of them this does help.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Copperband is my choice and about 4 weeks ago had an infestation in my 93 cube and all aptasia were gone in 11 days !!

 

[Lovetoclown]

I’ve done the peppermint shrimp. Some in the display and some in the sump. Sump is clear, but display still has them. Added 5 nudis in the display, then read that peppermints are a big predator of nudis. So I’m betting they were a pricey meal.

 

[Jeff_H]

Hard to say at this time, this is my first time keeping one, and I just went w/ one in my 120g, but I was expecting it to be more the size of what I usually see at LFS, this guy was tiny.
If you did get more than one I'd guess you'd have to rehome at least one down the road, and I've never heard how they get along w/ each other

I have had two ORA Filefish for about two months now and I did observe the larger one nip at the smaller one in QT a little but nothing to be concerned about as it was usually over food. Now they are in the DT, the smaller one has grown to the size of the larger one and I often see them hanging out together and have not witnessed any more aggression. I found information online the differences in male or female, but either there are still not old enough, or they are both females.

 

[DesertReefT4r]

I inject them with kalk paste then cover the whole thing in kalk paste. Come back and check a few days later repeat if needed. Covering them with frag glue or putty works well also. I tried pepermint shrimp and they did not touch the apt and slowly disappeared 1 by one.

 

[Bob Lauson]

My first choice would be the copperbanded butterfly but too difficult to keep alive. The peppermint shrimp have done a really nice job for me.

 

[H@rry]

I've tried Peppermint Shrimp a few times but never had any success with them eating Aiptasia. I tried Copperbands twice but they wouldn't eat and were too timid to take up for themselves against other fish that bullied them and they didn't last long. Them I got two Kleins butterflys. One disappeared and the other one cleaned up all the Aips and eats anything I put in the tank.

 

[jimbob928]

I fought aptasia for ages in both my display and frag tanks. I used aptasia-x and joe’s juice with poor results. They just kept coming back. I even bought one of those blue lasers and zapped them! I finally bought some nudi’s and peppermint shrimps. After about a week I stopped seeing any aptasia. It’s been months now and I’ve never seen another one. I no longer see the nudi’s either, as I expect they have all starved to death I still have a peppermint shrimp in each tank and they don’t seem to be causing any problems.

 

[Cessna89811]

I have used peppermint shrimp for 1-2 aiptasia and Berghia for infestions of 10 or more. They both have done a great job. I also got a ORA aiptasia eating filefish. The Filefish ate my cleaner shrimp instead and never touche the aiptasia.

I have also used Aiptasia X and the Majano Wand Aiptasia & Majano Eliminator.
Both just made aiptasia go BALLISTIC so that it quickly multiplied itself all over glass and live rock.

 

[PhreeByrd]

Berghia are the only obligate aiptasia feeders on the list, and are the only sure thing. When I used them, I bought 5, cultured them in a separate tank until I had dozens, and added them to the display tank at night with the tank flow off. I had a sixline and 4 paracheilinus wrasses in the DT at the time. The Berghia survived just fine and wiped out the aiptasia in 3-4 weeks. Easy as could be, and 100% effective. I sold enough of the extra Berghia to my LFS to pay for the Berghia I originally bought several times over. This is a no-brainer.

 

[Decat]

I would also like to mention that my LARGE tassled filefish eats all the aiptasia in my 120 gallon display tank. And I do mean ALL of it. You can see the small aiptasia in the cracks of the live rock only in areas he cannot fit into. In that system I have aiptasia EVERYWHERE except where he is. I have it in the overflow, the sump, and any small crevices he cannot fit into. But anywhere he can access is glass anemone free. You can see and hear him chomping on areas of live rock all day and sometimes all night. Haha. He is a beast.