So, I've got one rock that seems have an aiptasia problem. There are several tiny ones on it and my boiling water and syringe solution hasn't been working so well. I can easily remove it from the tank. Can I dip it in something, or put it in the fuge, or what?

Thanks!

Maybe dip the whole rock in boiling water? or bake it?

I've had good luck using peppermint shrimp to solve the aptasia problems...

pep. shrimps work great for me but after there done taking care of all the aptasia feed them. I didn't feed my pep. shrimps and he ate half of my watermelon chalice frag so now i feed him a little piece of freash shrimp everynight

i like peppermints too, just remember they usually prefer to eat things other than aptasia and so they might not go strait for it, when well fed, and they do need to eat afterwards.

Take it out and either boil it or use a blowtorch. Seriously. Either way will kill everything on the rock though. And may cause fumes in the air.

I can't get a peppermint. My tank is a little to small and young for that.
If I boil the rock, will there by any advantage to putting it back in the tank? Everything will be dead. Will that create a Ammonia spike?

No, don't kill your rock. How big is the tank? You don't need a large tank for a pep.

Edit- I looked at your sig. A 3 gallon pico would be fine for a pep.

+1 peppermint shrimp. If you have them on that one rock odds are they are somewhere else too.

I also found the whole boiling water/lemon juice thing largely ineffective.

The cure for me ended up being a single peppermint shrimp in my 29g (they get into trouble when you add too many! One is usually all that is necessary).

Of course there are other chemical solutions available. Many people report great success with aptasiaX & other similar products. There's also concentrated kalkwasser which people say works well.

How big is this rock? If your tank is small it's probably only 1 or 2 lbs. As long as you have enough other LR in the tank you might as well just boil it, scrub it, and let it dry out for 3 days or so. At that point it will be considered base rock and won't cause any ammonia spike or anything as long as it's clean. If you really want to keep it live though, you could stick it in a completely dark 5-gallon bucket with a powerhead for about a month which will kill the aptasia but not the beneficial bacteria.

Of course, as mentioned treating this one rock doesn't guarantee that there aren't little tiny aptasia rooted in the other rocks! I'm thinking your best bet is aptasia X

Good luck!

IME dark means nothing. Aiptasia do not have zooxanthelle so you aren't going to kill it by just leaving it in the dark. They eat and so anything that is in the bucket they will eat too. It might get rid of some of them, but likely they will put out babies as they are dying in hopes of leaving some behind. Baking is really the only way to get completely rid of them all without risk to anything else (ie pep shrimps might eat other things you don't want them too).

Be careful baking a wet rock since the vapor can build up inside and make an explosion. I have had first hand experience, it doesn't happen every time but it has happened enough to make me stop doing it.

i bought joes juice and it worked on 2 of them first try. very easy imo.

chachi

Good point, although I've never had this happen to me. Fortunately there is more than 1 way to accomplish the results. You could just leave it out for a week and I'm sure everything would die then you could scrub it up.

easiest thing to do is take it out... put it in a bucket of freshwater for about 3 days. leave it outside so it gets cold. and then let it dry to 2 days. then put if back in.

Not to derail, but are you sure about that? I've seen some nearly transparent ones turn brown after exposing them to the light for a few weeks...

On topic, I'd give a +1 to trying a shrimp before taking any drastic measures. You could always return it or give it away when you're done with it.

i like your thought on shrimp.. but the only thing is that its not 100% that every shrimp you will get will eat the apis... its a chance thing. and also that would take a while and by that time they will have reproduced and gone on to other rocks...

i think you should just put it in a cold bucket of fresh water for like 2 days then let it dry for a day then everything on it will be dead and you can put it back in your tank.. its a painless procedure that will benefit you in the long run when you have no apis to worry about in the future.

Aiptasia do have zooxanthellae; which is why you will rarely see them in shaded areas. Also, this is how they can survive without people directly feeding them.

So, last night I took out the rock and put it in some water and heated the water to near boiling. Then, I cooled it down to room temp in some other water. I used all RO/DI. Then, I put the rock back in. It turned a very bright neon green. I checked all parameters this morning and no ammonia spike. All the life in my tank including the GSP, feather duster, and little hair worms are fine and there is no aiptasia in my tank anywhere. I'm just hoping it will get the nice pink coralline back soon.

Probably gonna add snails to the tank chaeto to fuge in the next day or so.

+1
ive had part of a sea wall blow up in my face before from a fire

What would be the advantage of baking a rock instead of boiling it?