There's gotta be a better way to deal with Aiptasia... x.x

[OrchidMiss]

Ive never had aiptasia in my system since i added a bunch of peppermint shrimp. They are amazing. But beware, they can go rogue and eat your lps.

Also, beware if you have any predatory fish!!
My Falco hawkfish ate 2 within 15 seconds of introducing them.... He ate better than I did that night.

 

[Lavey29]

Wouldn't you be worried about aggression between them and my Skunk Cleaner though in such a small tank?

I have peppers with my skunk, red fire and banded shrimp with no issues and they do clean up most of the aptasia too.

 

[MyOtherCarIsAFishtank]

Berghia. They take a while, but they are the best option by far.

Most other options can make it worse, depending how your use of them goes. If you don't use Aiptasia-X, boiling water, etc., perfectly, the aiptasia you try to kill will multiple into hundreds if it survives. That's how they work, and the people who breed berghia have told me in confidence that they sometimes use things like that to intentionally spawn hundreds more aiptasia for their berghia to eat.

A pepermint shrimp or aiptasia eating file fish can be good, but keep in mind they can also ruin the tank: if they don't destroy the aiptasia they are eating, it will come back with a hundred more for the same reason. As others noted, they can also start to eat your LPS, etc.

Berghia eat only one thing: aiptasia. Their weakness is they are absolutely the long-game approach: they take forever if you have a large infestation of aiptasia. The key is not to add too few berghia, to follow the instructions carefully so they don't get eaten/blown away when you add them, to check that you don't have many predators that will eat your berghia (if you do, you need to add enough that they breed faster than they are eaten, which can be expensive), and to be patient.

You might need to use some of the direct-nuke options while you wait if aiptasia start to grow near your corals, but don't use that any more than necessary. I once had a 150 gallon SPS-dominant tank using the WWC flow ratios (ultra high), and berghia still took down the aiptasia gradually. I even had some berghia predators, but the berghia eventually outbred them too.

 

[TWYOUNG]

Talk to your LFS. Some of them breed berghia nudibranchs to take care of that problem. There's one in St. Louis, MO that definitely does that. They'll eat the aiptasia and you might even be able to return the nudi

Would you mind sharing the name of that LFS for a fellow St Louis resident? Thanks!

 

[kdx7214]

Would you mind sharing the name of that LFS for a fellow St Louis resident? Thanks!

It was Seascape Studios. I picked up some rock there and they mentioned they were breeding them.

SeaScape Studio: Aquaria & Gifts

www.seascapestudio.net

Best of luck!