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Old October 30th 07, 05:31 PM posted to rec.aquaria.marine.reefs
wolfdogg
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Posts: 72
Default Aiptasia control

I havent tried Blue Life, and wouldn't try it myself personally. i
would never opt to use marketed off the shelf chemicals to biological
control. however i do have a remedy for this that does include a home
remedy chemical.

peppermint shrimp DO work, but patience is required. I guess i can
see in some cases, do to personality, shrimps may not quite have their
natural taste, but most of them love aptasia. Possibly take it back
and exchange it for another and tell the LFS its not eating your
aptasia. I use them for control too, when the pp shrimp died, about 4
months ago, the aptasia started coming back, he didn't get a chance to
off all the polyps. now theres about 40 of them in my tank at least.
its time for me to break out my remedy since i don't have money to buy
another pp shrimp yet.

what i use is lemon juice, i take a syringe and pull in about 1cc of
lemon juice and give them a dose internally. ya gotta be quick. dont
squeeze out more than 1/10th of that cc, usually it takes about 1/20th
of a cc, if you get it inside them. then you can stab the rest of
them until your cc is gone. if you have good alkalinity it will
buffer the acid. the tank shoudl be able to handle the additional
organics and process them, and its a relatively safe method.

when you get them good, you see their tentacles melt right off into
long hair like strings that go floating up into the water "VICTORY",
but usually its hard to get them that good. usually they retract as
they are dying. once they retract, if still visible, i stab them a
few times giving the about 1/50th of a cc per stab. this way i make
sure they will die. then theres those aptasia that are really fast,
or are buried deep in the rock, when you stab them they retract quick,
and all the low-dose of acid does to them is turn them into clear
aptasias but doesnt kill them. then after a few ore days you can take
another "stab" at them.

between peppermint shrimp, and the lemon/lime juice that should be
enough to decimate them. essentially, to eradicate, you would acidify
the large/medium ones before they spawn, and let the shrimp take care
of the small ones and newborns.

the syringe im talking about is a hypodermic needle as used for
vaccination shots or diabetics, etc...
note- i wouldn't use more than 1 or 2 cc's in a weeks time, your tank
will need time to process the organics and you don't want to grow any
undesirable algae, but that has not happened to me in all the years i
have been doing this.

also, i fully agree with pszemol, natural biological control is always
better than chemical control, in ANY circumstance, human or fish. but
butterfly fish will eat alot more than you bargained for, so i
wouldn't use this method, i would exchange the shrimp if possible, or
get more.

this is my answer to your question of "Anyone used Blue Life? "

p.s. i wonder if you tried to use a syringe for your product if it
would reduce surrounding carnage