On 27 May 2007 08:01:38 -0700, wrote:


Berghia are a great solution to aiptasia problems in the right tanks
where they are a good fit. We've heard plenty of feedback that berghia
have solved people's aiptasia problems.

We've also heard a ton of feedback that Joe's Juice made their
aiptasia problems worse. So our advice is to siphon away any aiptasia
on which you apply Joe's Juice. Any of the pieces of aiptasia that
break off the aiptasia you put the juice on can make new aiptasia. The
foot of the aiptasia, if not destroyed, can regrow as well.

Peppermints are hit and miss. They must be the right kind of
peppermint (most stores don't really know what they have), they prefer
to eat fish food and they typically eat only the smaller aiptasia
assuming you have the right species of shrimp.

Copperbanded butterflyfish are hard to acclimate. It's not unusual for
people to try two or three before they get one to live for more than a
week. If the fish lives, it's a crap shoot as to if they will eat
aiptasia.

If you are considering berghia, don't get peppermint shrimp. They are
predators.


Hopefully you won't take my last post as an attack on you, I assure
you it isn't.

You are wrong about peppermints being hit or miss, they are 100%
effective in my experience...the problems reported are from camel
shrimp who eat everything but aptasia. How someone can't tell the
difference is beyond me.

I have often wondered if a peppermint would eat an aptasia, since they
look quite similar when they are full after a big meal, but I could
never bring myself to actually try it because I assumed they would eat
em.

As far as a suitable tank, well my experience is you can't fit enough
aptasias in a tank to make it suitable. I have tried a variety of ways
to create a self sustaining aptasia/bergia environment, and I always
have to supplement the aptasias with either home grown or wild caught
because they go to the smaller ones first and leave nothing for the
microscopic larva to eat.

They will eat them all but a big one, which always starts the aptasia
cycle again. I know this as a fact, because it is how I grow more
aptasias, and they will always gravitate towards the smaller ones
first assuring nothing for the larva if you don't get them all out.

I have four tanks devoted to this project and if I felt they were
suitable, I would have started selling them months ago. As you must
know, with a good food supply it is trivial to have 100 ready in 30
days.

I have nothing against people who do sell them, I had originally
intended to do the same thing. I have shifted my breeding focus to
peppermints even though I can get them most of the year from the wild
for free. I really feel they are a hundred times better for this
problem...which isn't that big of a problem anyway IMO.

I have probably screwed around with aptasias more than anyone in a
variety of attempts to BOOST their reproduction rate and they just
don't grow all that fast. When I find any in my display tanks, I
extract them with forceps and nothing ever sprouts from the base.

I rip them from the glass and it is 50/50 whether another one will
even sprout. I chopped them up and tried to make 100, all that
happened is they slimed the water and rotted...

I have even hit them with low doses of joes juice because of the
reports from people, and it just stunted their growth with no joy on a
massive outbreak.

I have found the very best way to get them (aptasia) to reproduce is
keep them in the dark for a month, but that is a pain in the ass for
me and messes up the action I have going.

I have been considering selling viable egg swirls, since I cull most
of them anyway, but without preparing a tank full of microscopic
aptasias or chopping and feeding them every freaking day with a scope
it is next to impossible to raise them from an egg IME. I doubt many
people would have success.

I am glad someone is out there supplying them, because they make a
very cool pet, I just found them ineffective in my tanks...and I
always have aptasia because 99% of my stuff comes from the Keys, home
of the bergias and aptasias.

My vote goes to peppermint shrimp in case anyone who made it this far
down didn't take that from what I have already written. It is what
I use and I have a steady supply of nudis for free.

Please don't let any of this persuade anyone from buying bergias if
you have predators who will eat the shrimp, they are very neat to
watch and pretty easy to raise....don't cry when your $60 worth of
bergias disappear into the rocks, never to be seen again and your
aptasias are flourishing, you have been warned.

BTW: They live about 60 days from start to finish, and if you don't
have a TON of microscopic aptasia the bloodline will end.