Aiptasia Control

Yesterday, I received two Aiptasia eating nudibranch
(Berghia verrucicornis) and they were tiny. A club member
did a group buy for six of these from someone on Reef
Central, I believe. I've got a lot of aiptasia (btw, I've
always spelled it 'aptasia' but noticed in Google that the
'i' was left out.) in my reef, and I've tried a few of the
typical solutions but they continue to pop up out of
everything including within corals themselves.

Thus, I decided to use my Frag Tank that I made for our Next
Wave conference to house these little guys, and I'll put LR
and corals in there for the nudibranchs to comb over and
erradicate these pests. Plus, since Nibbles won't stop
chewing on my zoanthids, I figured this might be a good way
to salvage those. I'm not 100% decided, but this might be a
good way to propagate corals if I can set it up in a way
that works well.

So first of all, here are the little guys. They are really
tiny, less than 1/8" wide, and maybe 1/2" long.

http://www.melevsreef.com/pics/0405/frag_nudi8.jpg
http://www.melevsreef.com/pics/0405/frag_nudi9.jpg
http://www.melevsreef.com/pics/0405/frag_nudi10.jpg

They arrived yesterday in a bag, and I got them home and in
to the frag tank by 1am after being out all day. Btw, they
also remind me of a nudibranch that eat zoanthids, from the
images I've seen posted online.

So here's the tank set up. Dimensions are 34 x 24.5 x 8,
with a 6" water depth. Lighting is a 250w 14,000K SE MH. A
Mag 5 connected to a spray bar creates the current in the
tank, and the corner overflow box keeps the surface clean.
I had to put a couple of spare heaters in the unit as the
tank temperature did drop overnight - something I didn't
anticipate to be honest. I figured the Mag pump would
generate enough heat but apparently not.

http://www.melevsreef.com/pics/0405/frag_tank.jpg

Here are a number of images of the nudibranchs on the LR.

http://www.melevsreef.com/pics/0405/frag_nudi1.jpg
http://www.melevsreef.com/pics/0405/frag_nudi2.jpg

Note the size of the aiptasia compared to these little guys.

http://www.melevsreef.com/pics/0405/frag_nudi3.jpg

When I introduced these to the tank, I turned off the pump
and tried to pour them over the rock once I realized I could
not pick one up out of the water. They are so light that as
I tried to gently get one, it would wash through my finger
tips and around my fingers, never permitting me to even
touch it. So the first one landed as planned. The second
one landed in an aiptasia!!! The aiptasia closed up around
it, and I thought: "That's *just* great. I wonder who'll
survive this battle...." but about a minute later I saw the
nudibranch was alive and released. Watching closely, it
was almost like the aiptasia was frightened as the
nudibranch bared its fangs (my interpretation) since the
aiptasia would retract a little bit at a time.

http://www.melevsreef.com/pics/0405/frag_nudi4.jpg

In these images, you can see how small it is in relation to
the hitchhiker asterina starfish.

http://www.melevsreef.com/pics/0405/frag_nudi5.jpg
http://www.melevsreef.com/pics/0405/frag_nudi6.jpg
http://www.melevsreef.com/pics/0405/frag_nudi7.jpg

Here are a few of the zoos in that tank, as well as a frag
of SPS. My thinking about the separate frag tank with MH
lighting is that I can move rock and coral to this tank as
needed, and the coral should have plenty of light to survive
its stay for a short duration.

http://www.melevsreef.com/pics/0405/frag_zoos.jpg
http://www.melevsreef.com/pics/0405/frag_zoos2.jpg
http://www.melevsreef.com/pics/0405/frag_red_zoos.jpg

Hopefully it will work out. Right now I'm having some
problems maintaining steady temperature in that tank.

Marc

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