Help me choose best way to rid of single aiptasia.

[SamsReef]

For 1 aiptasia, it’s always #1. Take the rock out, cut the portion out, wash it properly, put it back. Why brother putting anything else in the tank.

Sam

 

[brandon429]

handle it like a surgeon handles polyps / leaves a divot agreed.

if it's wedged in between two corals, then a divot exists afterwards in between two corals, and whichever coral is selected the best will fill in the divot. If I owned a large tank you couldn't pay me to permit a single aiptasia, ever, on any coral bommie in place.

 

[Chris4580]

I’m a little scared about a ph swing with the slurry. Am I too worried about that?

All you need is to fill the mouth of the little bugger, just a drop to cover it. I've done it in a 20 gallon waterbox three or four times with no issues

 

[Reefing.with.Rich]

I just found an aiptasia on one of my rocks. I am not going to boil the whole rock because I have gsp growing on it. So here are the options I can think of.

1. Take the rock out, cut what I can and blast it with a torch lighter along with anything within one inch of where the aiptasia was. Then smother it with some kalk and maybe put some glue on the spot.

2. Leave it in the tank and put some glue over and or kalk paste it.

3. Peppermint shrimp.

4. Get one of those fancy lasers. ( I feel this is the worst option because I assume this method will cause the aiptasia to spread its babies the most.)

Any other recommendations or modifications are appreciated.

Don’t add anything to the tank at all
The hands down best way to kill off aptasia is to get a cup of rodi water and pop it in the microwave until it’s boiling. Then take a target feeding syringe and hit it with boiling rodi water and it will turn to slime and be dead for good.
And your simply adding rodi water into your tank without adding chemicals

 

[TheBear78]

Don’t add anything to the tank at all
The hands down best way to kill off aptasia is to get a cup of rodi water and pop it in the microwave until it’s boiling. Then take a target feeding syringe and hit it with boiling rodi water and it will turn to slime and be dead for good.
And your simply adding rodi water into your tank without adding chemicals

I tried this for a single head of Aiptasia that I inherited on a Zoa frag. Initially it looked successful as the head shrivelled to nothing and I didn't see it for a few days...
3 attempts later and it came back again so I did what I should have done in the first place and broke the frag off, pulled it out of the tank and just chopped off the section with the Aiptasia.

I used a long coral feeding tube and while it killed off the surrounding coralline algae it didn't seem to quite finish the Aiptasia. My thoughts were that the long thin tube just lost a little too much heat as soon as it was immersed in the tank but who knows. It certainly got a good blast of boiling (hot) water but for me at least, it didn't work.

 

[Reefing.with.Rich]

I tried this for a single head of Aiptasia that I inherited on a Zoa frag. Initially it looked successful as the head shrivelled to nothing and I didn't see it for a few days...
3 attempts later and it came back again so I did what I should have done in the first place and broke the frag off, pulled it out of the tank and just chopped off the section with the Aiptasia.

I used a long coral feeding tube and while it killed off the surrounding coralline algae it didn't seem to quite finish the Aiptasia. My thoughts were that the long thin tube just lost a little too much heat as soon as it was immersed in the tank but who knows. It certainly got a good blast of boiling (hot) water but for me at least, it didn't work.

That’s off
Always worked for me and my several reefing buddies

 

[brandon429]

I absolutely love the madness that an anemone can inflict upon humans

we're nearly powerless to its command, one man's cure is another man's anemone fertilizer. it's one of the most destructive organisms because the masses simply will not stop running fragmentation games with them, and #1 reason because all cure advice comes from someone's home tank, not ten aiptasia tanks they cured that we're reading about as a link

that thing that troubleshooters do, offer best practices without showing the ability to command it for others, is the #1 thing the anemones from mars require to takeover humanity. we should give them more of exactly just that

 

[brandon429]

Right now, a person who just read the large recent new article on destructive methods for dinos control is sending me a message about it not working

guess what was the basis of that huge article: how the author's home tank was cured of dinos.

it is such a strange phenomena for best practices to never require any sort of proof of live time ability to attain an ends, for 10-20 people right now.

its alway, always, always just about what an author did at home and because of that, reefing cannot progress very fast. it can progress slowly though. aiptasias were a problem for large tankers too in 2002

but not for pico reefers
there is a specific reason we don't see pico reefs overtaken by aiptasia unless they're newbs

 

[brandon429]

having just one aiptasia is the ultimate lucky reverse engineer of all online aiptasia-lost tanks. they would give anything to be where you're at...heck some of them would lift out that rock and not put it back, considering the destruction it wrought only detected in hindsight

you have a chance to literally do opposite of the masses, you're on anemone #1 vs 500


I am in vegas, and I bet right now all red and orange chips we opt to spread the anemone, nobody can actually just destroy the first one, they're going to select to grow them I'll guarantee it.

post a pic of a huge divot in a rock if you're a 1% er

 

[Hurricane Aquatics]

I used to use the old school method of 100% lemon juice and it works, but they can spread using this method. As others have said, use kalkwasser mixed in RODI water and put the paste on the aiptasia. Works every time.

 

[fishmonkey]

What did you choose

I think tonight ima try to burn it and then smother it with a bit of kalk then glue over it and put the rock back in. I saw a video on how to do the kalk paste and I feel weird putting all that kalk in my tank. I guess the kalk paste hardens and then is ok? I dono im still thinkin

 

[fishmonkey]

having just one aiptasia is the ultimate lucky reverse engineer of all online aiptasia-lost tanks. they would give anything to be where you're at...heck some of them would lift out that rock and not put it back, considering the destruction it wrought only detected in hindsight

you have a chance to literally do opposite of the masses, you're on anemone #1 vs 500


I am in vegas, and I bet right now all red and orange chips we opt to spread the anemone, nobody can actually just destroy the first one, they're going to select to grow them I'll guarantee it.

post a pic of a huge divot in a rock if you're a 1% er

I’ve had aiptasia in the tank before. There were like around 10 or so I forget. Got peppermints and they were gone. Peppermint shrimp are a ***** though. Messed with my coral and hard to catch. They eventually died for some reason.

 

[brandon429]

I must factor that as a risk though, because we can find that fragmenting and expanding the issue in other threads using dissolution means

imagine this

a reef rock has sixteen aiptasia only on one end and for 4 months that's where they've been. when the person put the rock in the tank 4 mos ago, that area had about five he thought he'd get to later

now that they're growing, that person could begin slurries or injection or boil melting/ that's what everyone does

I would have him take the live rock and break it in half

throw out the bad half, put the good half back in. his cycle would not reset, we can all afford to lose some surface area / and his aiptasia would be gone in an extreme way. it's that dangerous to entertain them, to smear them about across surfaces

peers only train each other on methods that work once out of five attempts, we can search out how the other 4 attempts progressed for these indirect methods

complete obliteration is so opposite of what the masses do. anyone with a wrecked aiptasia tank, after months of battle, would do the extreme on polyp 1 *if they could just get a do over*

eject them using whatever would be considered an upgrade effort is the reco

if you're doing what the masses do, expect to be taken over soon including your bedroom, aiptasia will pop up under the sheets, from the ceiling fan, in the shoes, it'll be a nightmare

the masses will only lead you to invasion, their posts show.

 

[fishmonkey]

I must factor that as a risk though, because we can find that fragmenting and expanding the issue in other threads using dissolution means

imagine this

a reef rock has sixteen aiptasia only on one end and for 4 months that's where they've been. when the person put the rock in the tank 4 mos ago, that area had about five he thought he'd get to later

now that they're growing, that person could begin slurries or injection or boil melting/ that's what everyone does

I would have him take the live rock and break it in half

throw out the bad half, put the good half back in. his cycle would not reset, we can all afford to lose some surface area / and his aiptasia would be gone in an extreme way. it's that dangerous to entertain them, to smear them about across surfaces

eject them using whatever would be considered an upgrade effort is the reco

Yea but I don’t think that would even fix the problem. I was aiptasia free for almost a year I think and probably 6 months or so after all the peppermints died out. I was surprised to find this one so I’m pretty sure there’s potential aiptasia all over the whole tank. If they keep popping up at an unmanageable rate I might get peppermints again.
I think if you have one aiptasia your done. There’s no going back. It’s pretty much all over the tank. I never added anything to the tank as well so it’s not like I brought in new ones.

 

[fishmonkey]

+1 on the berghia nudibranchs , aptasia is their only diet, plus they can get into all the nooks and crannies and places that can’t be reached.

Yea if I get more I might given a try

 

[fishmonkey]

Not if you are just nuking one, no. You should be fine. Maybe I missed it, but what is your tank volume?

Around 50 gallons I think including the sump. Display is aqueon 40 breeder and sump is a 20 long.

 

[Sebastiancrab]

I do one of two things:
a) if no corals are nearby, I use a grill lighter and burn it off
b) scrape off the bugger and use reef safe glue on the spot

I was checking my tank out with a flashlight recently and found 3 under rock overhangs. Without that light, they would have kept on reproducing!

 

[jabberwock]

Do aptasia move? I mean will they like walk around like other nems?

 

[Fish Styx]

Around 50 gallons I think including the sump. Display is aqueon 40 breeder and sump is a 20 long.

I wouldn't be too concerned about a ph spike if you're only doing a few. NBD. Now, If you have to declare all out war, I'd say wait until WC day and do it right before. Remember to turn off flow before you begin.

 

[fishmonkey]

So I just took out the rock, blasted with a torch lighter to ashes and then put some coral glue over. I’m pretty sure it’s dead. We’ll see when the next one appears because I know it will eventually.