How to propagate aiptasia by sixty_reefer

[The Blind Reefer]

A uncommon subject from an uncommon reefer, you may wonder why do we want to culture aiptasia wend this is one of the primary pests in our hobby since the very beginning . The answer is fairly easy. By understanding aiptasia propagation we can a) create a thriving culture of aiptasia eating nudibranch and b) understand how we can slow down the growth of aiptasia in our reef tanks.

1. How to set up a tank for aiptasia
2. how to propagate aiptasia
3. How to feed aiptasia
4. How to keep a sustainable source of aiptasia
5. Tools

1. How to set up a tank for aiptasia


My preferred method is to set up a shallow container, no more than 4” tall set up in a small sump with a 6 mm air line as a return from the display, with a small layer of activated carbon as a substrate. Ideally you will want the temperature in this container to range from 27c/80.6f to 29c/84.2.


2. How to propagate aiptasia


Once you have collected some aiptasia from your display, I recommend you to cut the aiptasia in half or in quarters once a week. This can easily be done with a pair of tweezers and long scissors. Gloves and goggles are recommended when you are fragging any coral, and aiptasia is no exception so please use adequate ppe.


3. How to feed aiptasia


From experience I have noticed that aiptasia will prefer smaller foods as they are easily digestible. I feed mine a mixture of daily hatched artemia and frozen lobster eggs. Other foods might work also as long as they are small. You would be surprised on how effective hunters aiptasia can be.


4. How to keep a sustainable source of aiptasia


As for keeping a sustainable source of aiptasia I recommend that once your tray is full to just give half of the aiptasia to your nudibranch. I tend to wait until they are expanded and just cut the top half were the tentacles are, and keep the foot in my tank to regrow, in average it takes 7 days to grow back to the original size. This way my number of aiptasia keeps on growing and the nudis getting enough food.


5. Tools


My favorite tools are long stainless steel tweezers and a long curved scissor

Pic updated weekly

How thick do you lay the carbon down?

 

[HawkeyeDJ]

When I first read this thread I thought to myself what everyone else is thinking, is this guy out of his mind?, propagating aiptasia?!, put its very clear that the data and findings from this has definitely intrigued me, the fact is he has found certain things that make them weak and make them not eat, they prefer smaller food and warmer temperatures, so I think in the long run these small adjustments can ultimately help us in getting rid of or making a smaller population of aiptasia that we can control, lets face it if you have an infestation of aiptasia, lets say 30 or more whos gonna go into their tank with aiptasia x and try to syringe feed each one of the aiptasia to try to rid of them its just not gonna happen, with these small but helpful facts I think its definitely a step forward in the right direction on how to stop the spread and maybe rid the tank of these pests, very good information and I think its very helpful to the hobby, I'm fairly new to the forum, but if there's an award to be given then it definitely should be here, thank you for taking the time to do this and most importantly, to share the information.

I'm thinking a nomination for a Nobel Prize for aquarium science could be in his future.

If this were the 1400s, he would be burned at the stake for his blasphemy (propagate aiptasia!?)

This is, imo, the ultimate in "thinking outside the box" and I believe it will advance our knowledge in this hobby.

 

[kvosstra]

Quick question on the cutting - how are you doing this? Are you cutting to have a part of the foot with each half or quarter? Or just snipping the "neck" and leaving the base?
I'm going through the aiptasia too fast!

 

[Reafer]

A uncommon subject from an uncommon reefer, you may wonder why do we want to culture aiptasia wend this is one of the primary pests in our hobby since the very beginning . The answer is fairly easy. By understanding aiptasia propagation we can a) create a thriving culture of aiptasia eating nudibranch and b) understand how we can slow down the growth of aiptasia in our reef tanks.

1. How to set up a tank for aiptasia
2. how to propagate aiptasia
3. How to feed aiptasia
4. How to keep a sustainable source of aiptasia
5. Tools

1. How to set up a tank for aiptasia


My preferred method is to set up a shallow container, no more than 4” tall set up in a small sump with a 6 mm air line as a return from the display, with a small layer of activated carbon as a substrate. Ideally you will want the temperature in this container to range from 27c/80.6f to 29c/84.2.


2. How to propagate aiptasia


Once you have collected some aiptasia from your display, I recommend you to cut the aiptasia in half or in quarters once a week. This can easily be done with a pair of tweezers and long scissors. Gloves and goggles are recommended when you are fragging any coral, and aiptasia is no exception so please use adequate ppe.


3. How to feed aiptasia


From experience I have noticed that aiptasia will prefer smaller foods as they are easily digestible. I feed mine a mixture of daily hatched artemia and frozen lobster eggs. Other foods might work also as long as they are small. You would be surprised on how effective hunters aiptasia can be.


4. How to keep a sustainable source of aiptasia


As for keeping a sustainable source of aiptasia I recommend that once your tray is full to just give half of the aiptasia to your nudibranch. I tend to wait until they are expanded and just cut the top half were the tentacles are, and keep the foot in my tank to regrow, in average it takes 7 days to grow back to the original size. This way my number of aiptasia keeps on growing and the nudis getting enough food.


5. Tools


My favorite tools are long stainless steel tweezers and a long curved scissor

Pic updated weekly

My God, never thought Id see the day. I can set those up with litteraly any time I want with no effor, they tak all control. Or used to.. Suckers

 

[sixty_reefer]

I have the same question!

The idea of using carbon comes from observations I’ve made in some trials leading to this experiment. Aptasia seems to attach themselves much easier to carbon for some reason and because you would be doing fragmentation on a weekly basis you would want the best substrate to aid the anemone to rebuild themselves. Also if you have the luck to have anemones spawning the baby’s will attach to carbon and grow to adults according my observation.

 

[sixty_reefer]

Quick question on the cutting - how are you doing this? Are you cutting to have a part of the foot with each half or quarter? Or just snipping the "neck" and leaving the base?
I'm going through the aiptasia too fast!

Just snipping the neck

 

[sixty_reefer]

How thick do you lay the carbon down?

Just a thin layer imo.

 

[kvosstra]

my berghia go through these small aiptasia so fast! And its hard to snip the necks sometimes. Thinned out my berhia this weekend with some trades and now trying to get my aiptasia supply up so I can drop some nudis into my display tanks, as well as keep some for culturing. Thanks for the feedback

 

[sixty_reefer]

my berghia go through these small aiptasia so fast! And its hard to snip the necks sometimes. Thinned out my berhia this weekend with some trades and now trying to get my aiptasia supply up so I can drop some nudis into my display tanks, as well as keep some for culturing. Thanks for the feedback

I used the long curved scissors from planted tanks they work as a treat, it’s like cutting grass almost

 

[maleks.reef]

This idea has been in mind for a while now. I am surprised to see that someone else actually did it. Ive been thinking of setting something like this up to grow nudis. I could use a small 3 gal tank for the nudis and a separate goldfish bowl to grow the aiptasia. The question is, how much aiptasia do you really need to feed those nudis? 2-3 a week? More? I am worried that their demand for aip will be more than I could supply, especially when the nudis' numbers sky rocket.

 

[fryman]

This idea has been in mind for a while now. I am surprised to see that someone else actually did it. Ive been thinking of setting something like this up to grow nudis. I could use a small 3 gal tank for the nudis and a separate goldfish bowl to grow the aiptasia. The question is, how much aiptasia do you really need to feed those nudis? 2-3 a week? More? I am worried that their demand for aip will be more than I could supply, especially when the nudis' numbers sky rocket.

I use a 10 gallon tank for aiptasia and a 5 gallon tank for the berghia. Aiptasia grow very quickly when fed baby brine shrimp. You could probably get away with a 3 gallon aiptasia tank, with seperate 3 gallon tank for the berghia.

 

[maleks.reef]

I use a 10 gallon tank for aiptasia and a 5 gallon tank for the berghia. Aiptasia grow very quickly when fed baby brine shrimp. You could probably get away with a 3 gallon aiptasia tank, with seperate 3 gallon tank for the berghia.

I am assuming both tanks would need to be kept at around 25 Celsius and also need an air stone, correct?

 

[fryman]

I am assuming both tanks would need to be kept at around 25 Celsius and also need an air stone, correct?

I have heaters in both tanks but it's not required. I use a HOB for the berghia and a circ pump for the aiptasia but I don't think this is a requirement either. The power strip was accidentally unplugged for these tanks for a week with no visible impact to either populations.

I've heard of people just using a gallon jar on a desk with a couple bio-balls, and nothing else. But I think at least an air stone would be better.

 

[Willbiker]

This is so cool! Thanks for taking the time to show us this cool project!

I would love to try this but when you disturb aptasia, spurs are released right? How do you stop spurs entering the main system? How do you prevent the aptasia re-entering the main system? Or do you simply keep the nudibranch population topped up in the display tank to control it?

 

[sixty_reefer]

This is so cool! Thanks for taking the time to show us this cool project!

I would love to try this but when you disturb aptasia, spurs are released right? How do you stop spurs entering the main system? How do you prevent the aptasia re-entering the main system? Or do you simply keep the nudibranch population topped up in the display tank to control it?

Wend you have access to so many nudibranch having a few Aipatasia in the display is not a problem, also the Aipatasia container is just before the nudibranch container, most spores release will settle in the nudibranch container before entering the main display. It would be quite dangerous the other way as you don’t want any nudibranch entering the Aipatasia container.

 

[Willbiker]

Wend you have access to so many nudibranch having a few Aipatasia in the display is not a problem, also the Aipatasia container is just before the nudibranch container, most spores release will settle in the nudibranch container before entering the main display. It would be quite dangerous the other way as you don’t want any nudibranch entering the Aipatasia container.

Fantastic. Why did you choose carbon as a bed? I suppose any rubble would do right? Is a light required for the aptasia?

 

[Willbiker]

Sorry just seen an earlier reply on why use carbon. Thanks for the info

 

[sixty_reefer]

Fantastic. Why did you choose carbon as a bed? I suppose any rubble would do right? Is a light required for the aptasia?

There’s a few advantages in using activated carbon imo it seems that Aipatasia tends to have a good liking for attaching itself to the carbon the other reason is that it’s easier to move Aipatasia around without worrying that some eggs or nudibranch could be removed with the rubble or trying to scrape it off the rocks if you were to just want to feed a couple of Aipatasias.
Yes some light will aid the growth although it doesn’t need to be anything crazy as long as of a 6k to 11k

 

[EugeneVan]

yes besides the common known method of not irritate the anemone, there is another way that makes them spread like wild fire that isn’t commonly known.

is the way we feed our tank, if a tank is fed just normal large foods, normal brine shrimp and above foods you can see that the population tend to stay the same there isn’t a great number of anemones growing. As soon as smaller foods are introduced (baby brine shrimp, lobster eggs, small flake etc..) they will explode in numbers and can grow to invasive numbers pretty fast in a display.
I went from 2 in the display to a few hundred under a month just because I’ve change the way I feed my tank, I’ve introduced smaller foods for nps and this made the aiptasia outbreak, they’re digestive system works better with smaller size food, they do struggle with digesting normal size brine shrimp and most times just regurgitate it out, wend they’re body’s are full with smaller particle food they digest it under 24h and grow in size rapidly. In addition aptasia thrives in high temperatures the hotter the reef tank is run the more comfortable they will feel.

I try and filter the water going into the grow out container to avoid losing the culture, if they were to get in there it could be complicated to remove them completely.

in resume if I had a few aiptasias in my tank and wanted to avoid for them to spread I would run a reef at 25c and avoid smaller particle foods. Until they were dealt with.

Excellent info. Thank you

 

[NowGlazeIT]

@Poseidon03 Not much really, this set up gives me more aips than I need. I’ve transferred around 50 a couple weeks ago from my aip vessel to the berguia vessel, and still plenty left.

Quick phone pic

Ive got currently 10 adults in this set up making babies all the other one gone in the display and LFS for credit.

Your LFS pays you for your aiptasia haha your a legend