Aiptasia and Berghia Nudibranch breeding project
- Thread starter silent1mezzo
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silent1mezzo
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I just found an adult Berghia in my aiptasia growout. Sucked it out quickly but now I'm worried. I'm not sure how it got there. I've been careful not to cross contaminate anything.
This is my worry, Berghia larvae are tiny and effectively invisible if they contaminate something (including your hands) until the grow up. However I suspect as long as you monitor daily you will be ok, since Berghia must be very macroscopic to breed. It is probably not as bad as contaminating phyto with pods or something like that where you basically have to discard the whole culture.
I am ultra careful, every day when I feed or do other maintenance I always handle the Aiptasia first and then once I handle the Berghia do not go back to the Aiptasia until the next day, do not use any of the same equipment for both systems, and the very few items that I must use between systems (e.g. a cup to pour Aiptasia into the Berghia system) gets washed and/or soaked in HOT fresh water before going back to the Aiptasia system. Hot water seems to be pretty fast and effective at killing both Berghia and Aiptasia.
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silent1mezzo
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This is what I was doing. I did move an invested rock in from my display tank early on and I wonder if there was juvenile on it.
Sleeping Giant
Proud Canadian Reefer
sounds like a good possibility
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silent1mezzo
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Starting to see some results. I'm picking out 1-2 floating berghia in my sump a day now. I can see at least 4 in the overflow (lots of aiptasia) and I've got at least 4 confirmed in the breeding tank with what looks to be a lot of juveniles (still very hard to see).
Aiptasia is growing amazing well, babies all over the glass and the tank. At almost the 2 month mark now I would not recommend using charcoal. It moves around too much with water changes and most of the aiptasia attach to the bottom of the tank, not the charcoal. The bio media and rubble are much easier to move between tanks.
Aiptasia is growing amazing well, babies all over the glass and the tank. At almost the 2 month mark now I would not recommend using charcoal. It moves around too much with water changes and most of the aiptasia attach to the bottom of the tank, not the charcoal. The bio media and rubble are much easier to move between tanks.
“ Aptasia colony cross contaminated”? …gotta admit that does sound funny LOL …
rock on, carry on ….back to lurking thread
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silent1mezzo
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I'm one of the crazies actually trying to grow aiptasia
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silent1mezzo
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This set up definitely "failed". Berghia got sucked in through the pump and then started living in here. I can't grow aiptasia fast enough. The plan was to seed aiptasia here and then move it over to the berghia tank.I've got another tub on top of my tank that I just started growing in too. Short term I'm just making sure I can sustainably growth both before investing in a larger setup. Longer term I'd look at racking a few 50 gallon lowboys for aiptasia growth
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silent1mezzo
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Ya I definitely agree with you. I've definitely learnt a lot so far
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silent1mezzo
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Overall things have been going well. I've sold 45 berghia so far and all but wiped out the aiptasia in my main tank. Any rocks/pieces that have it left I move to the berghia breeding tank and it's gone within a day.
My main problem now is growing aiptasia. I severely underestimated how slow aiptasia grows and how fast nudibranchs reproduce so I'm selling off most of my stock and then will re-grow aiptasia in a larger tank for longer periods of time.
Lessons learnt:
1. It really feels like aiptasia grow best when you leave them alone.
2. Activated charcoal is really annoying medium to grow aiptasia on. In the future I think rock rubble would be better.
3. Berghia eat a tonne of aiptasia.
My main problem now is growing aiptasia. I severely underestimated how slow aiptasia grows and how fast nudibranchs reproduce so I'm selling off most of my stock and then will re-grow aiptasia in a larger tank for longer periods of time.
Lessons learnt:
1. It really feels like aiptasia grow best when you leave them alone.
2. Activated charcoal is really annoying medium to grow aiptasia on. In the future I think rock rubble would be better.
3. Berghia eat a tonne of aiptasia.
jabraha1
Community Member
I have a tank full of macro algae, mostly Caulerpa mexicana, and the aiptasia have found a way to grow all over the plants without harming them. It's hard to then trim down the plant without disturbing the aiptasias and causing more of them to sprout up. empty shells are also going to increase your surface area from them to grow.
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silent1mezzo
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My main conclusions are:
1. Start breeding aiptasia well before.
2. Be _very_ careful with cross contamination. Once you have a thriving aiptasia colony make sure you don't add anything else to it from a tank that has berghia.
3. Use larger substrate (like rock rubble) in the aiptasia tank to make it easier to manage. Carbon (and bio media) are too light, doing water changes just caused it to move around significantly.
4. Cutting/Annoying didn't speed up aiptasia growth in any measurable way.
5. Seriously, start growing aiptasia way way way before.
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silent1mezzo
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Had to tear down the aiptasia tank and restart. I contaminated it with a piece of live rock that either had Berghia on it or their eggs. They mowed through the aiptasia. I dipped the aerator that had a few aiptasia left in freshwater and cleaned the tank, hoping that is enough to get rid of any Berghia eggs.
You might try hot water to dip the aerator etc. Does not need to be boiling, just 110-120F (hot tap water) will probably be very effective on berghia in just a few minutes. I don't know how long eggs or larvae can survive in room temperature freshwater, but it might be a while.
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