On Wed, 23 May 2007 23:03:13 -0500, "B" wrote:

Stringer,

To be honest I was pretty lazy about my aiptasia when I first saw a couple.
I did try to stab one a few times and that one disappeared. Later another
showed up and I was able to reach it and get it too. But that other one I
couldn't get to and never really cared.

6 months later I'm being bombarded with them. I kid you not that they are
everywhere. I have zoos that have a hole in the middle of the colony
because the glass anemone popped up in the middle. Aiptasia are good for
eating phosphates from your tank but I promise that if you ignore it they
will multiply slowly at first then go absolutely nuts. I probably have
around 50 that I can see in my 90g. Two of them are huge! They big ones
look neat. I have touched them and they don't sting at all but the fish try
to swim around them and, as I said, polyps don't want near them either.

Funny, the timing of your email. Just yesterday I ordered 4 berghi
nudibranch from www.saltyunderground.com. They come in tomorrow morning.
These guys are guaranteed predators of the aiptasia. It wasn't cheap but it
was my only hope of stopping this epidemic. Maybe while I'm acclamating
them tomorrow I'll get some pics of the aiptasia outbreak.

If you'd rather nature take care of it use the berghia. But remember that
once berghia eat all the aiptasia, they will starve to death. Or, do like I
did, learn from experience but you'll have to pay a bit more $$ later to fix
it.



Bergias are so very cool, I have been keeping them in a species
specific tank for some time now. I must be on the 12th generation at
least.

For some reason, they will never finish off all the aptasias in a reef
tank though. I swear they commit suicide so the babies will have food,
but if a ton of very tiny aptasias aren't present, they won't make it
anyway starting the next aptasia cycle.

Peppermint shrimp from the keys are always 100% successful.

Here are some pictures of them if you care.

http://s56.photobucket.com/albums/g1...a_stephanieae/

Here are the four originals. They and their subsequent babies have
eaten about 30 pounds of aptasia at this point. I have kept the
population down to two breeding pairs at all times, and about two
months ago I lost all the adults and luckily hatched four and am back
in full swing now.

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh...pagen umber=1

If I didn't have a steady supply of wild aptasia I would have lost
them some time ago!! They are fun to watch, but I use peppermint
shrimp for aptasia control in the tanks.





"StringerBell" wrote in message
...
Hey people,

I went out and got the Joes Juice--- But I just cant bring myself to stab
these suckers. I realize we are playing G*D with a host of organisms on a
regular basis----but this is`nt detached like just pouring in some
additive.
How bad can the Apistasia thing get?
Is there a more passive way of getting rid of these critters?
Maybe a natural predator?
My Copperband never took a bite,