When did Aptasia become such a big deal

blecki

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I used to listen to this advice, even when I watched an entire colony of Ompa Loompas shrink to nearly nothing.

Then I watched as Asterina took out 5 of my Great Owl zoas…

I no longer listen to this advice anymore.

That’s some serious $$$.
It's just because there's multiple species and there's too much differing information on how to tell them apart... I have them and I have seen them just mercilessly attack a new zoa frag. Like all converge on it. Yet I have vast colonies untouched by them. So it clearly varies by asterina species and zoa species.
 

LARedstickreefer

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It's just because there's multiple species and there's too much differing information on how to tell them apart... I have them and I have seen them just mercilessly attack a new zoa frag. Like all converge on it. Yet I have vast colonies untouched by them. So it clearly varies by asterina species and zoa species.

Which is why I now treat them like aiptasia. They’ll get out of hand and that’s a bad thing if they decide that tank glass biofilm isn’t good enough anymore.

I’ve been removing all of the ones that I see on the bottom, moving towards the Zoa colonies. I leave the others alone…For now. I’m getting tired of the nightly routine so I may just go scorched earth on all of them.
 

Beefyreefy

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I’ve find the more I mess with them the more I get. If I ignore them I never have more than a a handful in a few isolated places. They don’t seem to bother anything either.
 

Jmp998

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It's just because there's multiple species and there's too much differing information on how to tell them apart... I have them and I have seen them just mercilessly attack a new zoa frag. Like all converge on it. Yet I have vast colonies untouched by them. So it clearly varies by asterina species and zoa species.
It is interesting how variable zoas are in terms of susceptibility to predators. My ‘aiptasia eating’ filefish ignored a colony of daisy cutter zoas for years. But I added some nicer zoas, and she destroyed them within a day. Came home the next afternoon and she was chewing on the stumps. Daisy cutters still untouched.
 

Reefering1

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HAVE YOU EVER KEPT A RARE/UNCOMMON FISH, CORAL, OR INVERT? SHOW IT OFF IN THE THREAD!

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