B-Fit July 19, 2007 Share July 19, 2007 I purchased some LR about a month ago and it had some aiptaisa on it. I have had it in a big 42gallon trash can, with the lid on it, water flow and a heater for about a week. I thought with no light it would take care of it, but it's still on the rocks. Any suggestions on how to tackle this problem? Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dschflier July 19, 2007 Share July 19, 2007 Use a syringe and either use Kalk paste, Joes juice or vinegear. All will work. First kill all the ones you see, then wait and in time you might see more Kill those as well after that you should have most of them. Use the syringe to inject them right in there mouths. Pepermint shrimp will also eat them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davelin315 July 19, 2007 Share July 19, 2007 Actually, your putting them into darkness will backfire. Aiptasia will begin to bud and send off tiny little aiptasia into the water column if they do not get the light they want. They also will not die off without light, but rather will just become more dependent on filter feeding. Trust me on this, I've done a ton of research on them as much of the rock I get for school is a good deal because of the aiptasia on it. Depending on what you're going to do with it, there are many options. You have biological means (via copperband butterfly - mostly reef safe, racoon butterfly - not reef safe, peppermint shrimp - hit or miss, berghia nudibranchs - completely reef safe but very expensive for their size) and chemical means (Joe's Juice, injecting kalk/boiling water into them). The amount of aiptasia you have will determine how you tackle the problem. If it's just a few, go chemical on them. With the Joe's Juice, simply spray it on their mouth, they'll eat it, and if they get enough, they'll die. With the kalk, you need a hypodermic needle and you basically shoot them up with kalk that's mixed with boiling water. The combination of the pH imbalance and the hot water will kill them off if you inject enough. If you've got tons of aiptasia, this is not as feasible and you will want to try the biological approach. The berghias are fantastic but they are also very pricey. They eat only aiptasia and so when you run out, they will die off. The racoon is a good idea if you aren't intending on a reef, or, if you have someone who will take it later when it has done its job. The copperband may or may not eat aiptasia. On top of this, they are finicky eaters and you have to make sure you get one that is already eating. It will take time, but if it starts to eat, it'll tackle your problem eventually. The peppermint shrimp are the same, they may or may not eat the aiptasia. Some say they also will munch on your corals a bit, but I have not had this experience. The best way if you have a large infestation is to go with multiple solutions. I do chemical and biological on my tanks, hitting the big aiptasia with chemicals and as many others as I can and then letting the biological means take care of the rest. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
B-Fit July 19, 2007 Author Share July 19, 2007 Thanks for all the info guys. Since the rock isn't in my tank yet and it is sitting in the trash can, I think I will go with the simple and easy approach of boiling it. What I don't know is how to do that and what the downside of that is. I know it will kill off a lot on the rock. Dave- The darkness did backfire. I thought I was seeing things when I opened the lid a week later to find more of them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
extreme_tooth_decay July 19, 2007 Share July 19, 2007 (edited) Boiling, jeez. It's gonna kill the beneficial organisms. All you need is a bottle of Joe's Juice and 10 minutes probably. Worked for me, and I had a lot. Then about a week later, another 5 minute session, and they were gone for good. For good measure, I put in 2 pepperrmint shrimp at that point. I think they may keep tiny ones from appearing. tim Edited July 19, 2007 by extreme_tooth_decay Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
B-Fit July 20, 2007 Author Share July 20, 2007 Tim- I'm not in favor of the boiling idea either, but someone had suggested it and I thought it may be the easiest way to get it done fast. Another failed suggestion was the no light and that only made it worse. I guess I Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davelin315 July 20, 2007 Share July 20, 2007 Don't do vinegar. Vinegar will throw off the pH in the aiptasia since you're essentially injecting it with mild acid, but it'll also throw phosphates into your system. Also, don't boil the rock! That's possibly the worst suggestion you'll ever get. What's the point in having live rock if you kill everything that is alive in it? That'll not only make your rock useless biologically, but will also backfire and cause your tank to go through a heavy duty cycle since everything that you kill will now need to be decomposed and taken care of via biological filtration, which by the way will no longer exist! Back to the vinegar, I've never understood why people suggest a vinegar and kalk mixture. Vinegar is an acid and kalk is a base, so when you put them together, you essentially come up with a neutral solution. This, to me, is inferior to using kalk in boiling water or even boiling water on its own. The kalk solution will kill it because of the combination of the high pH and the hot water. Kalk and vinegar will basically be injecting a somewhat neutralized base into the anemone along with some water that's only slightly below the pH of the tank. Doing this, you might as well just inject it with RO water. Go with the boiling water/kalk or Joe's Juice followed by biological means. Your rock will be fine when you put it into the tank and you can do one rock at a time to ensure you get the aiptasia completely. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
B-Fit July 21, 2007 Author Share July 21, 2007 Appreciate the suggestions. I think I will go with Joe's Juice. Hopefully that will be the end of it for now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lanman July 21, 2007 Share July 21, 2007 Appreciate the suggestions. I think I will go with Joe's Juice. Hopefully that will be the end of it for now. Joe's juice for the win. But you will NOT get them all the first time... or the 2nd time... About once a week, I put alittle JJ in the syringe, and go on an aiptasia hunt. Sometimes I find really BIG ones, that somehow I've overlooked for weeks or months. Found one last night hiding under my yellow candy canes. He will die this afternoon. Don't overdo it with the Joe's - it really just takes a tiny squirt in the mouth - you will know if you got him good, he'll just sit there for a second, and then all of a sudden retract very fast, getting rid of as much of the stuff as he can. But it's too late for HIM! Okay - HER! (they must be females, they pop out babies at an alarming rate). Have fun with your aiptasia hunting! bob Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
B-Fit July 22, 2007 Author Share July 22, 2007 That was funny bob!!!!! I think it's aiptasia hunting season. Lock and load Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davelin315 July 23, 2007 Share July 23, 2007 Ditto on the Joe's Juice warning, it will kill off sps and lps as well as harm zoanthids. I had to over dose one that was buried in some zoanthids and the zoanthids around it disappeared. I also lost some sps in one of the school tanks when it got the fallout from aiptasia retracting above it and losing some of the juice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fry_school101 July 23, 2007 Share July 23, 2007 Just use the boiling water in a turkey baster. Suck it in and keep the open end pointing down otherwise it'll all shoot out! The most damage I've ever done is killing off about 1.5"x1" section of coraline, but I was being a little careless then and it grew back in a week or two. We're going to see how good of a shot i am though as I have one hiding in a bunch of yellow polyps. . . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Kevin August 4, 2007 Share August 4, 2007 Question about some rock i just picked up: What if someone stopped circulating the water for 3 months while rock was in a tub? Essentially it's already dead including aptasia - right? Not trying to hijack, just thought it was roughly inline with discussion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davelin315 August 4, 2007 Share August 4, 2007 Smell it. If it smells rotten, it is. You'll need to recycle it. If it doesn't smell rotten, then it's either very dead and clean (and needs to be recolonized) or the bacteria is still alive but dormant. The person just left the rock in water? Was it salt water? Did it look totally gross? I can't imagine how bad that would smell if it really was in salt water without any circulation for months... You probably would have a lot of anaerobic bacteria that is active in there (denitrifying). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lanman August 5, 2007 Share August 5, 2007 Ditto on the Joe's Juice warning, it will kill off sps and lps as well as harm zoanthids. I had to over dose one that was buried in some zoanthids and the zoanthids around it disappeared. I also lost some sps in one of the school tanks when it got the fallout from aiptasia retracting above it and losing some of the juice. Keep a turkey baster handy. As soon as you zap the anemone, move the leftovers around with shots from the turkey baster. I zapped a few polyps on a zoanthid when I first started using the stuff, but almost never hurt anything at all anymore. Zapped one growing out of the middle of zoa polyps last week, and didn't hurt them a bit. bob Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
'Ric August 5, 2007 Share August 5, 2007 Use a syringe and either use Kalk paste, Joes juice or vinegear. All will work. First kill all the ones you see, then wait and in time you might see more Kill those as well after that you should have most of them. Use the syringe to inject them right in there mouths. Pepermint shrimp will also eat them. Lemon juice also works. If you need a syringe, my cat is diabetic so I have a bunch of them (if the fact they were used on a cat doesn't bother you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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