when Berghia fail

[Peter Houde]

The Aptasia population has only blossomed since I added 18 "medium" Berghia to my 6' 125g tank 5 months ago. I've never seen a one since they reluctantly made their way out of the jar they came in over a three day period (i.e., no siphoning, prodding, or forceps used). I wonder if any are even still alive. So, my main questions are 1) are they likely to have been eaten by a bicolored dottyback, flame angel, yellow-tailed damsels, ocellaris clowns, coral shrimp, hermits or any other common denizens of the reef tank, and 2) could my powerheads be creating too much current for the fragile little guys (two Reefwaves and four wavemaker powerheads, various manufacturers)? My tank parameters are pretty normal and stable, although I keep dKH, Ca, and Mg a bit on the high side. Is it worth dumping another $300 or more into another batch of Berghia? The peppermint shrimp I tried before the Berghia disappeared instantly. I really don't want to add a copperband since my tank is already pretty well stocked with a couple of tangs and a foxface in addition to the aforementioned, because it would have a difficult time reaching the deep recesses in the coral skeletons that constitute much of my substrate, and because it would probably be difficult to keep in competition with its more aggressive tankmates especially after it ate all the available Aptasia. I can't get good access the little stinkers with Aptasia-X or a majano wand.

 

[Lavey29]

Have you thought of aptasia eating file fish.
?

 

[Peter Houde]

Too risky for my corals and inverts. It's bad enough that my tangs regularly graze on my gorgonians and occasionally nip my LPS.

 

[Rookums Reef]

The right peppermint shrimp will help with that, I just don't remeber what they're called!

 

[Peter Houde]

The right peppermint shrimp will help with that, I just don't remeber what they're called!

Been there, done that. At $49 a pop, I'm not sure how many more I'm willing to feed to whatever ate the first ones.

 

[saucetart]

This is what I recommend when I sell them (I ship them with a small pipette to use)

1. Lights off
2. Flow off
3. Use pipette to suck them out of the container and place them directly on the rocks next to/near (NOT ON) the aiptasia. Put at least 5 of them all next to/near eachother so they can find eachother to start breeding nearly immediately. They are also pack hunters - but if you spread them individually around the tank they may have a hard time finding eachother in such a big tank.

keep lights and flow off for a minimum of 1-2 hours

They are EXTREMELY good hiders & nocturnal, your best bet of finding them is at night with a flashlight, but even then they still may not be found.

 

[saucetart]

 

[Reeferbadness]

I battled Aiptasia for years - tried berghia, f aiptasia,Kalk paste, file fish ( which didn’t survive more than 2 weeks) and finally found the ultimate match and a great fish to boot - the Australian Stripey. I have 1 in each of my 200g mixed reef tanks and both have decimated the aiptasia and are reef safe and play nicely with others. A little on the pricey side but so are berghia and they die off once ur aiptasia is gone - which really means that aiptasia will make a come back and u start the whole cycle again.

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

You bought $300 worth of berghie? Did you notice a drop in the number of aptaisia? What I'm getting at, is that if you add many berghia at once, they will quickly finish off the aptaisia, and then die of hunger. But they will never find every single aptaisia baby that is hiding away, so after the berghia die, aptaisia start appearing again. Its a normal cycle that will repeat forever, berghia will never finish off every single aptaisia. Thats why I just add a few berghia at a time now, once or twice a year, so they can eat the aptaisia slower and not die off from hunger so quickly.

 

[robanister]

i recently coated mine with waterglass. Hope this helps. Be careful. One at a time. I turned my water off. It formed a gel. Turned back on after 10 min. Blew gel off after 2 days.

 

[exnisstech]

Been there, done that. At $49 a pop, I'm not sure how many more I'm willing to feed to whatever ate the first ones.

$49 is insane. These are are the ones I use in my smaller tanks

CBBs keep my large display clear. If conditioned property CBB will hold their own and compete with tangs for food. It usually doesn't work well just tossing one in a DT to fend for itself.

These are my CBBs at feeding time with the tang gang



If your loosing peppermints and berghia I would think there may be some predator in the tank eating them. I've never used berghia because of the cost and the fact they will die when the aiptasia are gone.

 

[robanister]

 

[Peter Houde]

You bought $300 worth of berghie? Did you notice a drop in the number of aptaisia? What I'm getting at, is that if you add many berghia at once, they will quickly finish off the aptaisia, and then die of hunger. But they will never find every single aptaisia baby that is hiding away, so after the berghia die, aptaisia start appearing again. Its a normal cycle that will repeat forever, berghia will never finish off every single aptaisia. Thats why I just add a few berghia at a time now, once or twice a year, so they can eat the aptaisia slower and not die off from hunger so quickly.

Thanks for the response. The berghia never put a dent in the aiptasia. It's as though I never added them at all. There's just been a slow and steady increase in aiptasia for the past five months since I added the berghias. I'm willing to try them again, but I don't want to make the same mistake I did before, whatever that was.

 

[Peter Houde]

$49 is insane. These are are the ones I use in my smaller tanks

CBBs keep my large display clear. If conditioned property CBB will hold their own and compete with tangs for food. It usually doesn't work well just tossing one in a DT to fend for itself.

These are my CBBs at feeding time with the tang gang



If your loosing peppermints and berghia I would think there may be some predator in the tank eating them. I've never used berghia because of the cost and the fact they will die when the aiptasia are gone.

Thanks. $49 is from AlgaeBarn. It's time for another order of snails from Reefcleaners anyway, so I'll add a bunch of these to my order.

 

[Peter Houde]

I was tempted

I battled Aiptasia for years - tried berghia, f aiptasia,Kalk paste, file fish ( which didn’t survive more than 2 weeks) and finally found the ultimate match and a great fish to boot - the Australian Stripey. I have 1 in each of my 200g mixed reef tanks and both have decimated the aiptasia and are reef safe and play nicely with others. A little on the pricey side but so are berghia and they die off once ur aiptasia is gone - which really means that aiptasia will make a come back and u start the whole cycle again.

I was tempted to get one of these when I first saw them. Nice looking fish, but the descriptions I read either said they were not reef safe or "with care". With care? I see that all the time, but what does that even mean? Scold your fish when they eat your coral? I believe you when you say yours don't bother your coral, but every fish may have its own personality. If with care means get rid of it if it doesn't work out, then there's the question of whether I can catch it. I've tried trapping fish before. You can easily get the ones you don't want, but the ones you want just know it's a trap.

 

[Peter Houde]

$49 is insane. These are are the ones I use in my smaller tanks

CBBs keep my large display clear. If conditioned property CBB will hold their own and compete with tangs for food. It usually doesn't work well just tossing one in a DT to fend for itself.

These are my CBBs at feeding time with the tang gang



If your loosing peppermints and berghia I would think there may be some predator in the tank eating them. I've never used berghia because of the cost and the fact they will die when the aiptasia are gone.

That's a gang alright. Exactly how do you go about conditioning a copperband to an established community?

 

[exnisstech]

That's a gang alright. Exactly how do you go about conditioning a copperband to an established community?

Its a long process because the CBBs usually aren't eating so they spend a lot of time in observation just getting trained to eat before they get moved to my DT. I want the fish swimming to the front of the observation tank begging for food before I even think about moving it out.
There's some good info in the thread below. There's a little more of my method in post #7

Copperband Butterflyfish - A beautiful but hard to keep species.

Chelmon rostratus, one of the most iconic reef fish but one of the worst to attempt. If this wasn’t one of the first “unusual” fish to catch your eye then I’ll be surprised as many people will walk into an LFS for the first time and there will usually be one, two or in some cases four of this...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[Scoob]

delete

 

[chip shop]

Not read through all posts but the only way they fail is if they get eaten, there diet is solely aptasia nothing else is and most things that might eat aptasia will also take a liking to your corals seen loads post that they’ve had copperbands that were safe but how long were they in the tank for in my experience and it’s obviously not gospel as we do have different experiences but as certain fish mature more they will change behaviour patterns that includes what they eat in your tank,I’ve had a yellow tang for 7 years that suddenly loved the taste of my torches,sorry for long post it’s unusually worm here in uk and I’ve had a few rums to cool me down

 

[Reeferbadness]

I was tempted

I was tempted to get one of these when I first saw them. Nice looking fish, but the descriptions I read either said they were not reef safe or "with care". With care? I see that all the time, but what does that even mean? Scold your fish when they eat your coral? I believe you when you say yours don't bother your coral, but every fish may have its own personality. If with care means get rid of it if it doesn't work out, then there's the question of whether I can catch it. I've tried trapping fish before. You can easily get the ones you don't want, but the ones you want just know it's a trap.

I understand and also added the 1st one to a tank with trepidation. They are actually very active and voracious eaters - so my thinking was that it should be easy to catch if it starts nipping at corals. I have a mix of soft and hard corals so lots of corals for it to possibly bother/eat. I picked up the first one when it was very small - and it took about 3 months before it started eating aiptasia. After the success of the first Stripey, i thought i'd try another one for my 2nd tank - same thinking. I heard it's 50/50 - so i guess i beat the odds then. Now i have 2 large adults who keep aiptasia at bay and are model citizens. The risk / reward ration for me was take a chance and eliminate the plague or ... continue battling aiptasia as i had for 3+ years and spend lots of time / money doing so and not winning. First photo is my 4 year old 200g tank with Stripey. 2nd one is my 6 year old 180 g tank - don't have a

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