Aiptasia control

On Nov 1, 6:38 am, Salty Underground
wrote:
On Oct 31, 8:16 pm, wrote:





wrote:

Nice summary; I'd still like more info about theBerghia.

Mike

Saltyunderground.com has been helping people solve their aiptasia
problems for years. The following summary of aiptasia control options
are based upon 5 years of conversations with hundreds of people and
our own experiences. It's no secret that there are not many hard and
fast rules in this hobby. The following is a general review of these
options. Each hobbyist experiences may vary. We hope you can use this
information as you consider what method is best for your aiptasia
problem.
BerghiaNudibranchs
Strengths:Berghiaeat only aiptasia anemones, nothing else. They can
crawl all over your tank to eat the aiptasia you see and the ones you
do not see. If acclimated and added to a well maintained tank, they
are hardy invertebrates. They may reproduce to help speed up aiptasia
eradication.
Weaknesses: It may take time for theberghiato solve heavy aiptasia
infestations especially if you do not get the correct number of
berghiafor your situation. If theberghiaare not at least ?", they
should be maintained in a small tank or a container of at least 1
gallon of water until they grow larger before they are placed in a
display tank.
Predators: Primary predators are peppermint shrimp and nocturnal
scavenging fish including coris wrasses that hunt at night.
Peppermint Shrimp
Strengths: When they work, they work fairly well. They typically eat
aiptasia fairly quickly.
Weaknesses: Some stores do not know what type of peppermint shrimp
they are selling. So the shrimp you get may or may not be the kind
that will eat aiptasia. Peppermints would rather eat fish food and may
not eat large aiptasia. They can be destructive to corals, desirable
anemones and clams. Smaller peppermints may not acclimate well.
Predators: Fish which eat ornamental invertebrates such as hawkfish,
various dottybacks, various wrasses, some puffers, some triggers,
eels, ect.
Copperbanded Butterflyfish
Strengths: When they eat aiptasia, they are usually fairly quick about
it.
Weaknesses: Difficult fish to acclimate to a home tank. It may take
several fish to find one that will live. When they live, they are hit
or miss on eating aiptasia. Some are easily bullied by other fish and
it can be difficult to get them to eat foods added to the tank. Some
may nip at corals and clams. Not an appropriate fish for tanks under
50 gallons.
Injected Chemicals and Potions
(includes Kalkwasser preparations such as homemade mixes and store
bought preparations; lemon juice; boiling water, ect.)
Strengths: Inexpensive (when used on a small number of aiptasia) and
fairly easy.
Weaknesses: Risky since this technique often makes the aiptasia
problem worse by spreading small pieces of the dying aiptasia around
the tank. Those pieces grow into a lot of small aiptasia. May cause
injury if you accidentally apply to corals. Can only apply them to the
aiptasia you can reach. Can alter tank pH when used in large doses in
smaller tanks.
Manual Pulling and Scraping
Strengths: Free and fairly easy.
Weaknesses: This is a waste of time. Pulling and scraping may make the
aiptasia problem much worse by spreading small pieces of the aiptasia
around the tank. Those pieces grow into a lot of small aiptasia. It
may be * to get at all of the aiptasia using this method.
Soaking Rock in Fresh Water
Strengths: Free
Weakness: Don't bother. It will kill all life on the rock except the
aiptasia. Aiptasia can live through fresh water soaking, even for
days.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

You can read info on our website of course. You can also read the
following info from Anthony Calfo. Some of it is a little dated, but
it is still some of the best technical info available. Or just googleberghiaor aiptasia.

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-0...ure/index.php- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

One more thing worth mentioning. Occassionally, we've had people
confuse majanos anemones (another type of pest anemone that can spread
in a tank) with aiptasia. Berghia only eat aiptasia. Although we have
not heard of any peppermint shrimp eating majanos, some many eat them.
So it is important to make sure you have aiptasia and not majanos if
you want to treat the problem effectively. They can look a lot alike
especially to people who are new to the hobby. If you are unfamilar
with majanos, google majano to check out some pictures.

There are a couple traits that will help tip you off to what you have.
A majanos tends to have shorter tenticles with rounded, sort of bulbed
tips on them. Aiptasia usually have longer, thinner tenticles with
points on the end.

Also, majanos tend to attach to the surface of the rock and the base
is easy to see and dig under. Although this is not always true,
aiptasia tend to find a hole or crack and lodge themselves down into
it, making the base of the aiptasia harder to see.

There can be color difference also. In many cases, if you have
stronger lighting the majanos can take on a green color in parts of
the bodies, especially the disk, in addition to brown. Aiptasia don't
exhibit green coloring. It is possible that majanos are the same brown
color as aiptasia especially if you have weaker lighting. So color is
not nessesarily the best indicator to ID the species.

Berghia nudibranches are not 100% nocturnal. But yes
they are mostly nocturnal.

Also on a side note, they really are not Berghia
nudibranches, as they were originally misidentified,
but I continue to refer to them as berghia since
that is what most people know them as.

You may claim that you have never had anyone report
that their clown fish killed the nudibraches, but I
used to raise the nudibranches, and have witnessed
them being killed by the clownfish. They are easy to
raise, and reproduce like rabbits. The hardest part
of raising them is keeping up the aiptasia
production to keep up with the berghia eating them.
In the reef tank, reproduction is minimal at best,
because the larva do not survive, as they get
filtered out by the filter feeders, and skimmer. If
anyone would like to see what the larva look like
under a microscope, I have a picture of one on my
web site. They look and act like rotifiers.

Wayne Sallee



Salty Underground wrote on 11/1/2007 7:52 AM:
There's no doubt that clownfish protect their anemones. I've have a
few bloody fingers to back that up.

The chances of a clownfish seeing a little berghia at night and having
any issue with it is minuscule to the point that there is no reason to
avoid getting berghia if you have clowns and anemones. We have many
customers who have reported that berghia in tanks with clowns and
their anemones have successfully cleaned their tank of aiptasia. Most
tanks that berghia go into have clowns and anemones in them. We have
no reports of anyone observing a clown attacking a berghia. From a
practical standpoint it would be hard to see since berghia are
nocturnal. But I assure you from our years of expereince with berghia,
it's highly unlikely a clown will attack them.

This kinda fits in the category of "Don't believe everything you
hear," especially in this hobby. You can read in online forums and
chat groups where people recommend Joes Juice, Aiptasia Control and
other chemical/injection methods for removing the aiptasia. Yet, some
of them have either never used it themselves or the fail to write 4-8
weeks after treatment that their aiptasia problem has become worse or
even exploded.

This lack of reporting may be because they do not make the connection
between the use of the chemical and the increase in aiptasia. But we
can assure you that the use of these chemicals can be tied to an
increase in the aiptasia population in many tanks. We estimate that
about 85% of the people who buy berghia from us report that their
problem became much worse after the use of chemicals. This is hundreds
people making this report.

wrote on Thu, 1 Nov 2007 :
Don Geddis wrote:
wrote on Tue, 30 Oct 2007:
Not from San Francisco, are you?
Nearby. On the peninsula. The hills above San Mateo.
Did you used to do Brazilian Jiu Jitsu?

Yup. Still do (Tues mornings). At Ralph Gracie's academy in Mountain View.

-- Don
__________________________________________________ _____________________________
Don Geddis http://reef.geddis.org/
A thought for the day: In ``A Clarification of Questions,'' Iran's Ayatollah
Ruhollah Khomeini wrote that ``if a fly gets into the throat of one who is
fasting, it is not necessary to pull it out.''

i had a peppermint shrimp, it devoured all my aptasia. once the
shrimp died, the aptasia came back slowly but surely. after about 3-4
months of not having that shrimp i have about 30-40 aptasia ATLEAST in
my 29gal aquapod. I have been injecting lemon juice only about 3
times in that 3-4 months period, but it has failed to kill some of
them just turn them clear. So, the lemon juice MAY HAVE caused another
population explosion, MAY HAVE, but i do have more aptasia. Again, i
only injected 3 different times, cause i have been lazy in the
injection department, i just dont like to do it.

We got 2 peppermint shrimp for the 60 gal a few weeks ago, as soon as
we dropped it in from teh acclimated bag, it fell down about 1 inch
from a fully expanded aptasia with tentacles reaching about 1.5 inches
in diameter at the top, it started eating at the edge of the extended
tentacles, the next day forward there has NOT been a single aptasia
sighting. obviously peppermint shrimp have their uses. Stick 5-10
shrimp in there and call it a day.

Don Geddis wrote:
wrote on Thu, 1 Nov 2007 :
Don Geddis wrote:
wrote on Tue, 30 Oct 2007:
Not from San Francisco, are you?
Nearby. On the peninsula. The hills above San Mateo.
Did you used to do Brazilian Jiu Jitsu?

Yup. Still do (Tues mornings). At Ralph Gracie's academy in Mountain View.

I didn't know you kept reef tanks. We used to work out together when
you showed up at Charles'. I'm at Ralph's in SF now.

Mike

Retained more than a Lysmata shrimp (including mint) benefit you shimp eggs and feed production Your corals and fish, shrimp larvae released into the water.