Stubborn Aiptasia

[phinatic]

I have an Evo 13 that is doing great with SPS and rainbow bubble tips. It is setup as a no-water-change tank with a deep (3") sand bed. Last water change was 9/4. Prior to that was 5/7. No longer any issues with algae since the tank has been well broken in. I have pods all over the place and great growth for both the BTAs and the SPS. But...

 

I have an aiptasia problem that is starting to spread. A few months ago, I was able to keep it in check with hydrogen peroxide injection and selectively replacing colonized rocks. However, they are now on rocks that I can't pull out and the peroxide injections don't seem to be working. I am looking for recommendations that would get rid of the aiptasia without harming my BTAs. I am considering the following:

 

1. Filefish

2. Peppermint Shrimp

3. Berghia Nudibranchs

4. Aiptasia X

 

Anyone have experience with these and BTAs/SPS? I'm not worried about the shrimp. How about the rest?

 

 

[Sturgi_0225]

https://reefbuilders.com/2024/01/29/molly-miller-blenny-is-a-viable-alternative-for-aiptasia-control/
 

the shrimp and nudibranch shouldn’t have any effect on sps or bta

[mcarroll]

52 minutes ago, phinatic said:

1. Filefish

2. Peppermint Shrimp

3. Berghia Nudibranchs

4. Aiptasia X

 

Anyone have experience with these and BTAs/SPS? I'm not worried about the shrimp. How about the rest?

None are entirely foolproof – pick your favorite caveat.

 

1) the least track record

2) mixed success rate – chances are it will do nothing/eat fish food leftovers and poop.  They can definitely eat corals if they are motivated...and starving them is the main way to encourage them to eat aiptasia instead of fish food.

3) mixed success rate AND expensive – chances are they will disappear into the tank/be eaten; maximum success means they die of starvation after your aiptasia are all gone.

4) mixed success – chances are you'll be successful, but if you don't get the technique at first it can take some practice to get right.  Persistence = victory.

5) adding this on....if your tank is big enough, a Klein's Butterfly will be great.   Similar caveats as Peppermint shrimp, but much larger odds they will go straight to work on the aiptasia and leave your corals alone.

 

#4 is my go-to by a wide margin.   #4 has NEVER eaten corals.  I mean *NEVER*.   😉 

 

In a large tank with an out-of-control problem, the risks are often worth it for the other options.  Not when you just have a dozen or few to shoot.

[phinatic]

7 minutes ago, mcarroll said:

#4 is my go-to by a wide margin.

And there are no ill effects for the BTAs as long as I don't squirt it on them? Any concerns for Clownfish? They mostly hang out near their main BTA

[mcarroll]

14 minutes ago, phinatic said:

And there are no ill effects for the BTAs as long as I don't squirt it on them? Any concerns for Clownfish? They mostly hang out near their main BTA

No harm to corals or anemones....some fish seem compelled to eat it, and no harm there either.  Very low risk.

 

[mcarroll]

(It should be pretty easy to miss getting it directly on your anemones or corals, but once you turn the flow back on, "bits" will be all over the place.  Just a little context. 🙂 )

[phinatic]

Thanks for the tip. I'll cut the pumps while applying

[empresto]

For what it's worth, I had a 40 breeder with a significant aiptasia problem. Adding 4 bergias resulted in no aiptasia in the system after about a month. I even had a 6-line wrasse and figured, "surely this fish will eat them...". Nope. They were breeding and happy and totally ignored by the 6-line.

I added them near some aiptasia with the pumps off in the evening just after lights out. Be careful not to place them directly on or in reach of the aiptasia.

Sure, they're about $20-30 a piece unless you find a sale, but that was the easiest pest removal I've ever done.

[phinatic]

So I tried the Aiptasia X and overall was impressed. With the pumps off, I was basically able to drop it right into the aiptasia. I did run into 2 issues that people should be aware of though if they have other ornamental anemones (e.g BTAs) in their reef.

 

1. If you have aiptasia above your other anemones, the X will drop out and fall onto them. They will ingest it as well. For this case, I irritated my BTAs with my finger first to get them to close up. This helped keep them from catching the X is it fell out.

 

2. Be careful with your trigger finger. I was moving from one aiptasia to another and my clownfish decided to hit my hand. It startled me and I squeezed some X into the open water. Of course it fell right into my largest BTA and it ingested it. It wasn't much, but it is clearly irritated and looks like crap. Trigger discipline is key. Don't put your thumb on the plunger until you are over the aiptasia. 

[MrP]

2 hours ago, phinatic said:

2. Be careful with your trigger finger. I was moving from one aiptasia to another and my clownfish decided to hit my hand. It startled me and I squeezed some X into the open water. Of course it fell right into my largest BTA and it ingested it. It wasn't much, but it is clearly irritated and looks like crap. Trigger discipline is key. Don't put your thumb on the plunger until you are over the aiptasia. 

A good tool to have on hand is a small extendable freshwater shrimp net. Place the net underneath the area your working on and it will catch the drips. 

[phinatic]

That would have been a good tip as well. I posted that just after application. My BTA that was exposed has already split in an effort to survive. That was a very fast split. I suspect I'll end up losing one of the halves, but we'll see. Maybe the split allowed it to get rid of the sticky X that it ingested.

[mcarroll]

15 hours ago, phinatic said:

So I tried the Aiptasia X and overall was impressed. With the pumps off, I was basically able to drop it right into the aiptasia. I did run into 2 issues that people should be aware of though if they have other ornamental anemones (e.g BTAs) in their reef.

 

1. If you have aiptasia above your other anemones, the X will drop out and fall onto them. They will ingest it as well. For this case, I irritated my BTAs with my finger first to get them to close up. This helped keep them from catching the X is it fell out.

 

2. Be careful with your trigger finger. I was moving from one aiptasia to another and my clownfish decided to hit my hand. It startled me and I squeezed some X into the open water. Of course it fell right into my largest BTA and it ingested it. It wasn't much, but it is clearly irritated and looks like crap. Trigger discipline is key. Don't put your thumb on the plunger until you are over the aiptasia. 

Excellent description of your experience!  Very helpful to anyone else in the same boat IMO.  👍

12 hours ago, phinatic said:

My BTA that was exposed has already split in an effort to survive. That was a very fast split. I suspect I'll end up losing one of the halves, but we'll see. Maybe the split allowed it to get rid of the sticky X that it ingested.

Yikes!  Not that this response from your BTA's doesn't make sense (it does), but I've never seen that kind of response in a larger anemone personally (incl LTA)...any chance your nem's are just hungrier that what I was accustomed to?  

 

Ours would get hand fed almost daily, and thus weren't hungry most of the time.  Ours would get "hit" but not eat it.  Seemed the same for our corals that were "in the vicinity" that would get hit.  I guess they were also sated or just good at rejecting it.  

 

I always kinda assumed that some of it was eaten and just tolerated, or even possibly digested somehow (it's not like it's glue or a toxin, etc...) ...and that it was only lethal to aiptasia because of their tiny size relative to the dose.  Ie a baseball-sized clump of Aiptasia X *might* hurt a large (eg LTA, BTA) anemone, if you wanted to do such a thing.  Makes your situation very interesting IMO.  (theory -> 🪟?)

 

Did you happen to notice a similar reaction (or lack of) from any of your corals by chance? (if any)

 

 

[phinatic]

2 hours ago, mcarroll said:

never seen that kind of response in a larger anemone

By large, I'm talking about 6-7 inches, so not huge. I started with a 3 and a 4 inchers. Those 2 have now split into 7 after last night's mishap. Both halves survived and look good this morning. 🙂

 

2 hours ago, mcarroll said:

Ours would get hand fed almost daily

I don't feed them directly very often. They are all Rainbow BTAs. I broadcast feed my fish mysis shrimp, squid and herring eggs on a rotation. I only occasionally give it to the BTAs directly.

 

2 hours ago, mcarroll said:

Did you happen to notice a similar reaction (or lack of) from any of your corals by chance?

Corals were unphased. I even had one aiptasia that had planted itself right in the middle of a monty plate. The monty is totally fine other than the bald spot where the aiptaisa was attached. Similarly, branching corals were also fine after treating some aiptasia around their bases.

[mcarroll]

3 hours ago, phinatic said:

By large, I'm talking about 6-7 inches, so not huge. I started with a 3 and a 4 inchers. Those 2 have now split into 7 after last night's mishap. Both halves survived and look good this morning. 🙂

Do you think there's any chance it could have just been coincidence?   Glad both parts are doing well!  (Glad aiptasia don't respond like this!!!!! 😨)

 

3 hours ago, phinatic said:

I don't feed them directly very often. They are all Rainbow BTAs. I broadcast feed my fish mysis shrimp, squid and herring eggs on a rotation. I only occasionally give it to the BTAs directly.

Seems like that could be a factor...so maybe just target feed your 'nems before you hunt aiptasia if they're gonna be "in the line of fire"?  

 

(Using a net to catch "friendly fire" as someone else suggested is also a good idea, but probably not practical in all aiptasia-hunting scenarios.  Good to have all the strategies in your pocket!  🛠️)

[phinatic]

23 hours ago, mcarroll said:

Do you think there's any chance it could have just been coincidence?

Not likely. I was looking at it just before I started treating the aiptasia. Oral disk was intact and looked normal. After the X landed on it, it ingested the X and then started to push out its insides maybe 30 min later. That's when it started moving and did its split. It was only like a 4 hour process. Never seen anything that quick before.

 

23 hours ago, mcarroll said:

Glad aiptasia don't respond like this!!!!! 😨

No kidding. The ones I treated are wiped out. It works VERY well. I found a few small ones I missed and will need to do another treatment.

 

 

[BostonBlenny]

I bought 10 peppermint shrimp and a file fish the 2 day my file fish jumped out of the tank from this bully fish .Peppermint just seem to hide should I not feed them for a couple days keep the lights off for a few days what can I do for these peppermint to kill these aiptasia 

[mcarroll]

Not much if there's a fish in the tank that's keeping them in hiding.  They tend to be nocturnal anyway, so it's possible they may start coming out after the fish have gone to sleep – which is usually around light-out time.

[CDone]

I tried the F Aiptasia stuff and found that all it did was cause them to spread to plague proportions, then I went out and bought $300 worth of Nudi's thinking that would be the ticket, 10 weeks later and I'm thinking I got the laziest ones ever, UGH!, back to the drawing board. Gonna try Aiptasia X to give the nudibranchs a little help. My not so local fish store carries Lysmata Kuekenthali (peppermint/cleaner) shrimp and I'm tempted to add a couple of them into the mix as well. The battle rages!!