Hypo/Hyper Salinity VS Aiptasia?

[Ninong]

It worked, didn't it???

Yes, provided he had good eyesight and didn't miss any. You wouldn't have to worry about missing any if you used the rapid change in salinity method, which you could only do outside of the main tank.

[metalhead]

The most interesting method that I remember reading about several years ago was posted by somebody whose regular job was working in a restaurant. He borrowed one of those little blow torches that chefs use to caramelize the tops of creme caramel. He removed each piece of live rock just long enough to blast each of the little beasties with the blow torch.

I already tried that method several times to no avail. Had about the same results as KALK... they would subside breifly then come back with a vengance!

20/15 eyesite here BTW

[metalhead]

OK, all the rock is in the frag tank... I'll be starting the treatment in the next few days depending on how everything else goes. Pics/details coming soon.

[metalhead]

No real changes to update yet other than Salinity is now ~40 in the frag tank since I've been using make up water for top-offs in it for the last week or so. I figured this may keep me from having to drop the Salinity as low once the time comes.

[Bloodydecks]

As others have already stated..Peperment shrimp work well. I had a tank that had hundreds of the little pests, and i added 10 shrimp. With in two months, they were all gone...the shrimp have died over the past few years, and the the aptashia are slowly coming back...but only a few so far. i will toss more shrimp in soon.

I have done the Kalkwaser thing, but with little success.I would think the rapid salinity change will also kill of the beneficial organisms that live inside the rock...

Half a dozen peppermint shrimp should do the trick.



Toss a few shrimp in your

[metalhead]

Rock's still cooking in the frag tank and salinity's about 45 now with no noticeable change in aiptasia population. I have noticed that a lot of turf-like algae on the rocks is clearing up though. Still working on getting the 180 set up so it will probably be another week or two before I make the salinity plunge in the frag tank. I'll keep updating in the meantime if anything changes.

Thanks for the advice Bloody, I may give the peps another shot in the meantime... I'm also worried about residual die-off from the hypo treatment but all I really want to salvage from this rock is the nice purple coraline. So, we'll see what happens I guess. Should be interesting either way.

[metalhead]

OK... So salinity in the holding tank is about 45 right now. Aiptasia seem to be thriving and no other adverse effects noticed other than reduction algae, especially cyano. Still plenty of pods around, some species of macro seems unaffected as well. All in all, the tank looks darn good with crystal clear water.

Out of curiosity mainly I gave a couple of smaller rocks a nice FW dip the other night, straight tapwater that was very cold to boot. I swirled each rock around good, let it sit for a few, then swirled and dipped some more. Success, I initially thought, when I put the rocks back in the holding tank and saw several shriveled up anemones. :eek3:

Not quite... Every anemone on both dipped rocks is back and looking better than ever, almost like they just came back fron the spa or something.

So do you think we can make any conclusions so far? At this point I'm about ready to conclude that neither rapid salinity or temperature change will do a darn thing to rid these rocks of anemones and pitch them all out in the snow.

Any thoughts???

[charlie]

broil em

[metalhead]

Pic...

[metalhead]

OK... So salinity in the holding tank is about 45 right now. Aiptasia seem to be thriving and no other adverse effects noticed other than reduction algae, especially cyano. Still plenty of pods around, some species of macro seems unaffected as well. All in all, the tank looks darn good with crystal clear water.

Out of curiosity mainly I gave a couple of smaller rocks a nice FW dip the other night, straight tapwater that was very cold to boot. I swirled each rock around good, let it sit for a few, then swirled and dipped some more. Success, I initially thought, when I put the rocks back in the holding tank and saw several shriveled up anemones. :eek3:

Not quite... Every anemone on both dipped rocks is back and looking better than ever, almost like they just came back fron the spa or something.

So do you think we can make any conclusions so far? At this point I'm about ready to conclude that neither rapid salinity or temperature change will do a darn thing to rid these rocks of anemones and pitch them all out in the snow.

Any thoughts???

Going once...

[MNFishGuy]

I finally killed all of my aiptasia after years of struggling with them in my 75 fowlr. I took out my fish, added three peps and one 4 inch raccoon butterfly. They cleaned it out in about a month. I left them all in there for another month, and put my fish back in with them. So far, no reappearance.

Nothing else has ever worked for me....

[metalhead]

I finally killed all of my aiptasia after years of struggling with them in my 75 fowlr. I took out my fish, added three peps and one 4 inch raccoon butterfly. They cleaned it out in about a month. I left them all in there for another month, and put my fish back in with them. So far, no reappearance.

Nothing else has ever worked for me....

Thanks for that... I have tried pepps with a cbb in the past to no avail.

Even tried berghia once to no avail...

Don't think I'm going to invest anymore in livestock to cure the problem though at this point.

[metalhead]

Well, since the salinity was already elevated in the frag tank I went ahead and started bumping it some-more last night...
Hovering around 50 right now and I think (fingers crossed) it may be starting to work on the little buggers. Pods and stomatid snails seem unaffected so far. More to come

[metalhead]

The anemones finally seem to be declining and dying slow, painful deaths.... Problem is that so is all the coraline

Still see plenty of stomatids and vermatids though and lots of pods so all is not yet lost.

More to come :eek3:

[Noitsacardigan]

I have a pretty out of control problm with them too... Bought a peppermint shrimp and hes cool and everything but definitely hasn't touched any after about a month. I bought "Aiptasia-X" by redsea, the aiptasia perceive it as food and it plugs their oral discs. they literally implode, there are cool videos of it online. I only had a chance to try it on a few (it did them in pretty quickly) but haven't had the chance to sit down and try to hit everything in my tank to see if it actually eliminates the problem instead of controlling it. The one thing that's different about this stuff is its supposed to prevent the release of planulas so there is no further spread. This would definitely be worth a shot if all of these measures still don't get rid of the bastards, especially at about $10 shipped

[metalhead]

I have a pretty out of control problm with them too... Bought a peppermint shrimp and hes cool and everything but definitely hasn't touched any after about a month. I bought "Aiptasia-X" by redsea, the aiptasia perceive it as food and it plugs their oral discs. they literally implode, there are cool videos of it online. I only had a chance to try it on a few (it did them in pretty quickly) but haven't had the chance to sit down and try to hit everything in my tank to see if it actually eliminates the problem instead of controlling it. The one thing that's different about this stuff is its supposed to prevent the release of planulas so there is no further spread. This would definitely be worth a shot if all of these measures still don't get rid of the bastards, especially at about $10 shipped

Thank you! Though this approach did not work for me I would recommend adding some more pepps, the final number would depend on the size of your tank. For a 75 gallon I would try at least 10 of them.

There are also various species of butterfly fishes that that you can introduce along with the shrimp. I have seen this method work first hand with alot of pepps and a CBB but like I said, for whatever reason, it did not for me.

I've heard some good things about aip-x but IMHO it is more a means of control.