hector1520 Posted May 2, 2005 Share Posted May 2, 2005 Well, after 5 years and two crashes, I'm getting ready to tear the tank down for a while, maybe for good. I have been battling an insane aiptasia infestation with absolutely no luck whatsoever. It has killed all my corals except for a few mushrooms, the last 5 peppermints I used didn't help anything and just disappeared, and I haven't had fish in there in over a year. I have everything from pinhead sized polyps on the glass, to huge ones the size of broccoli. This is my last and final resort to keeping my tank going. I have drained most of the water out, scraped the glass free of all the aiptasia and I took the live rock out and hosed it all off with the water hose and suprisingly the aiptasia just flies off with the blast from the hose so I have a feeling there's still hope. I am letting the surface of the rocks dry so any last ones I missed will just dry up. What I need is motivation. Anything from advice, to pictures of your tanks, to maybe even some critters you may be able to spare to get it going. I have a few crabs and the mushroom heads I cut off sitting in a 2.5 gallon while I get the 10 gallon fired up. Im seriously getting ready to just leave the rock outside and put everything away. Link to comment
Kool-cat Posted May 2, 2005 Share Posted May 2, 2005 Try that joes juice stuff or something. I heard of anti aiptasia medications. Link to comment
Kool-cat Posted May 2, 2005 Share Posted May 2, 2005 http://www.aquaticcritter.com/Reef/JoesJuice.htm Link to comment
oogie Posted May 2, 2005 Share Posted May 2, 2005 You know, I am not worried about people trying to leave this wonderful hobby! I know from experience, that about month after you quit reefing, you will miss it so much that you will come back for sure!!! So, if you want to, or you are burned out, take some time but I KNOW you will be back in no time!!!! Link to comment
pdhenderson Posted May 2, 2005 Share Posted May 2, 2005 Try joes juice before you make any final decisions, I felt the same way last year, glad I didnt stop, or Id be regretting it. Look at the money and time you have invested into this hobby, to quit for one set back, well good luck with that. Link to comment
WREKDYVR Posted May 2, 2005 Share Posted May 2, 2005 Hector, maybe what you really need is a change of pace. I've kept fish in one form or another for over 20 years now. Have you ever considered freshwater? I know, I know, freshwater seems so boring but it's also very low maintenence. You can actually go out of town for a week and not have to worry about your tank crashing. A tank with a few angelfish and a small school of neons is always nice and fairly low stress to manage. I'm on the other end of the spectrum from you right now. I'm just getting back into reef keeping, I went back to freshwater in 1992. Hope this helps in some way, best of luck. Link to comment
hector1520 Posted May 2, 2005 Author Share Posted May 2, 2005 Thanks for the advice, its not that I can't keep up witht he maintenance, its just comparing my tank how it was this morning to how it was say, a year ago, is completely depressing. I worked out a deal with one of the LFSs here that I can take a few aiptasias and put them in their peppermint tanks and if they're gone within a day or two, to save them for me. I'm going to see if I can pull it off that way. WREK, I appreciate the advice but saltwater is just my thing. I went from freshwater to saltwater and at times I do miss it but it doesn't compare. Doesn't even come close. I'm going to dump maybe $50 in critters and chemicals to get it back to normal. I don't care if I'm left with a sterile tank, I want those damn things GONE! Link to comment
floppyfish Posted May 2, 2005 Share Posted May 2, 2005 I too had an ap problem. Killed off most of my coral and I gave up. Then a local reefer sold me 4 peppermints and now they are gone. Before: after: Link to comment
Divided Sky Posted May 2, 2005 Share Posted May 2, 2005 Dude, whatever aiptasia are left just kill them like this. IF you have kalkwasser sitting around put some in a container, then add some freshwater until its about the consistancy of toothpaste.( Note this does not take much water.) Then get one of those plastic syringes you get in test kits all the time and lightly drop it into the mouths of open aiptasia. They will quickly gobble it up before they realize its poison. Then whammo they expand, deflate and die. I learned this a longggg time ago but it seems everyone has forgotten, all I see are people advocating some expensive juice crap. Good luck. Link to comment
hector1520 Posted May 2, 2005 Author Share Posted May 2, 2005 Thanks. The ones I'm worried about are the ones that live in between the rocks where needles or my eyes can't get to. I am pretty good at killing the ones in plain sight. This is why I wanted to resort to biological means like peppermints. Link to comment
hector1520 Posted May 2, 2005 Author Share Posted May 2, 2005 Want to see a small piece of what I had to deal with? I found these that I took about 3 months ago. Imagine what it looked like this morning. The entire tank was covered, there wasn't a single aiptasia that wasn't touching the tentacle of another. It looked like a field of corn Keep in mind this was AFTER I had just injected and sucked up the huge ones. Not visible in the pics are hundreds of super tiny tiny tiny ones half the size of a grain of rice. The tank is up and running and so far no signs of any so far. I netted a few aiptasias that were swimming around. We'll see how it goes. Link to comment
Sickboy Posted May 2, 2005 Share Posted May 2, 2005 hector, I'm not sure what to say.....except that is, without question, the *worst* aiptasia infestation I have ever witnessed. I've never had any aiptasia (my battle was with hair algae) but I can't see why letting your rock dry-out and starting over again wouldn't cure the problem. The liverock looks pretty well devoid of any real life so you wouldn't be losing a whole lot. In fact, maybe new LR would be the best thing to do? I dunno..(more money spent though) When did you notice the first Aip? Was it with you the whole five years? Did it hitchhike in on a frag? Aip thrives when nutrients are high, do you use a skimmer? Link to comment
BKtomodachi Posted May 2, 2005 Share Posted May 2, 2005 You should sell your stuff to a berghia breeder! Link to comment
reefsrule Posted May 3, 2005 Share Posted May 3, 2005 I know how you feel. Algae is slowley wiping out my livestcok, and I would just start over if there weren't live animals involved. I can't add any more live stock and I have to scrub the algae everytime I do a water change, takes me 2+ hours. Link to comment
FishFreak Posted May 3, 2005 Share Posted May 3, 2005 i just found out that I too have aiptasia. Great. I will try Joe's juice tomorrow. Link to comment
hector1520 Posted May 3, 2005 Author Share Posted May 3, 2005 Sadly, the heart of that infestation came from bad advice. When I became aware of just how tough these guys were to remove it was too late. New ones popped up faster than I could remove them. Now I regret getting such porous rock. That made it almost impossible to get rid of. I couldn't kill any in large amounts without having a negative effect on the rest of the tank. I just came home after the tank has been running for a few hours and surpsisingly there isn't a single polyp in sight! I just may have some hope at winning this battle Link to comment
floppyfish Posted May 3, 2005 Share Posted May 3, 2005 Originally posted by reefsrule I know how you feel. Algae is slowley wiping out my livestcok, and I would just start over if there weren't live animals involved. I can't add any more live stock and I have to scrub the algae everytime I do a water change, takes me 2+ hours. Do you have an adequate clean up crew? I had no cleanup crew, well no snails accept for 1 astrea. Now I have about 40 snails and you can see from the pics above that my tank has no algae. Its all the same rock just the difference a month and snails can make. An adequate cleanup crew makes a huge difference. Get some astrea's, lots of ceriths, an emerald crab and some nassy's. Basically a diverse clean up crew. Link to comment
Maxvan1 Posted May 3, 2005 Share Posted May 3, 2005 you can sell those rocks. people on RC buy aiptasia and feed them to there berghia nudibranches. maybe they will trade you a couple, they would take care of the rest of the aiptasia... Link to comment
Maxvan1 Posted May 3, 2005 Share Posted May 3, 2005 http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthre...25&pagenumber=1 thats the thread, long, but on one of those pages he wanted to trade for aiptasia Link to comment
brassmonkey Posted May 3, 2005 Share Posted May 3, 2005 Thats a another problem solver berghia nudibranches, i kept my hitch hiker nudi just for aiptasia. Don't give up. Link to comment
Divided Sky Posted May 3, 2005 Share Posted May 3, 2005 dude, you have a problem. I had to shield my eyes when that picture came up. Then I had one of those little up-chucks in my mouth. Umm, yeah my method only works if theres a few, I would go with a natural predator for that kinda infestation. Good luck my friend. Link to comment
BKtomodachi Posted May 3, 2005 Share Posted May 3, 2005 i kept my hitch hiker nudi just for aiptasia. No, you didnt. Link to comment
Maxvan1 Posted May 4, 2005 Share Posted May 4, 2005 Originally posted by BKtomodachi No, you didnt. lol... What? Link to comment
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