Aptasia Control

[DAWG92]

HELP!!!! I can not get rid of the aptasia's in my reef I have used Joe's Juice,I have 5 peppermint shrimp in a 75 gal tank and I have tried a Copper Band Butterfly that lived for 3 days.Does anyone have any secret's that you can share.Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

[roofdv8]

I only had one "blossom" so my problem may be less than yours but this is what I did; I found a clean small bottle (like a visine bottle) I cleaned it very throughly, filled it with tap water and mmicrowaved until it was boling, then I went to my tank and dosed the aptasia directly. It appeared to die immediatel. I have never found a trace of it or any new blossoms. There was no ill effect on the other life in my tank. I did this abount amonth ago.

I like cheap solutions.

Jimmy

[DAWG92]

Thanks for the info I will try that tomorrow.

[wickjr]

I have heard of a lot of people having luck with the boiling water technique if you can get to all the aptaisia without tearing up your reef. I bought three peppermint shrimp from a local LFS and in less than two days all my aiptasia were gone. Actually overnight most of them were gone. I was told by one of the employees there, whom I trust a lot, that only wild caught peppermint shrimp will eat aiptasia, as tank bred ones are not exposed to them and may not recognize them as food. I'm not even 100% sure whether any peppermint shrimp are tank raised or not, maybe someone else on RS can answer that or expand on the whole idea. She told me she only buys wild caught peps, and the ones she sold me are aiptasia terminators.

[kromebusa]

Bonus side, I have been reading that apastasia are great water polishers. Just build a sump, filter your water line out and put the apastasia rock in the sump. As long as the water going out of the sump is well filtered, you shouldn't get any additional growth in your tank. Depending on what is on the rock, you can also pull it out hang it upside down, as it hangs out, pull it out.