Aiptasia control

Week one.

OK, I've been applying Blue Life Aiptasia control everyday, more-or-less
the way they tell you to. Here are the first week results.

I hit all the larger aiptasias, and all the smaller ones near other
anemones, the corals, or clams. So far, none of the aiptasia have
returned. The clams, corals, and anemones are opening up measurably
more than they did.

I did a couple tests on the compound; it's a highly concentrated
calcium bound to some sort of protein substrate. If you carefully
apply it to the aiptasia, it won't retract right away, until it
gets a good mouthful of the stuff.

I had a couple small aiptasias in the middle of my tubipora; turning
off the power head (recommended in any case when working with this
stuff) encourages them to close, so I carefully dropped a mouthful
into the aiptasia. It's gone, and the surrounding musica polyps
are definitely happier.

My clownfish, for reasons which totally escape me, seems to like the
taste of the stuff, and will sometimes picks at the excess which
drops onto the rocks. Hasn't hurt him yet, but I don't see the
attraction.

The stuff is VERY viscous; I tried attaching a large-bore needle at the
end of the syringe, and it's very difficult to work with that way.

Also, while I wouldn't bathe my corals in the stuff, very small
amounts have slid onto the polyps of my frogspawn, my bubble anemone,
and my open brain; they didn't even retract, likely because once the
stuff is out of the syringe, it may react with salt-water very quickly
to be rendered relatively inert.

I also checked with a couple of my LFS guys (other than the place I
bought the stuff.) One of the guys I respect the most says Blue Life
and Joe's Juice are the ones he sells the most of. He doesn't see much
difference, but the Juice costs more. He's sold both for awhile, and
hasn't had any complaints.

I'll post next week with more results.

Mike