Anyone else decide to start over due to Aiptasia?

[Research Monkey]

Pretty sure I tried my best before deciding to start over / upgrade. Had a single aiptasia about a year and a half ago. Got him with glue. Next one popped up shortly after and tried to glue that one as well. Things got out of hand after that. Purchased Aiptasia X but that made it worse. Purchased 10 berghia for a 20 gallon tank. Waited... never saw them... Realized my six line must have eaten them. Took the six line and whatever else might be eating them out and bought 10 more berghia. Not even a dent in 3+ months. Tried 10+ Peppermints (From 2 different LFS and even the Algaebarn ones that "eat aiptasia") and nothing... Went through 3 "proven" aiptasia eating file fish but again, not even a dent. The first file fish that didnt work actually worked for the reefer I traded it to! I'm sure the 2 other reefers I sold them to will work as well. For some odd reason they just didnt work for my tank. Funniest part is I have a small colony of berghia in the sump/AIO section of the 20.

Anyone else decide to start over or "nuke" their tank due to uncontrollable pests?

 

[Tommy Ngo]

The berghia in the AIO chambers is probably there are Aptasia there. Try moving some of them out into the display and give it a few months.

How bad are the Aptasia in the tank?

 

[joseserrano]

Berghia are sensitive, if you have bad water quality, they’ll die. Peppermint shrimp will only eat it if there are not other things To eat

 

[Research Monkey]

Berghia are sensitive, if you have bad water quality, they’ll die. Peppermint shrimp will only eat it if there are not other things To eat

Water quality is good. Parameters are all good. I have RBTAs in there and corals were doing well. They are also living in the back of the AIO.

The berghia in the AIO chambers is probably there are Aptasia there. Try moving some of them out into the display and give it a few months.

How bad are the Aptasia in the tank?

I've moved them over anytime it was easy to grab one. It was pretty bad. Tank was basically overrun. The only places they didnt thrive was right next to a RBTA.

 

[NickleCheese]

I got a much more worse problem than your Aiptasia before, majano anoneme. My tank is 250G. It so hard to fix and cant star over. Last year, it was everywhere, mostly on all my rocks. 1-2 pop up randomly right now but it’s under control with Aiptasia-X.
Right now, i have problems with Vertemid snails and Asterina starfish. i’ve put some predators in the tank and hopefully it will be under control.
And a very tough and hard turf algea. Even with a sharp razor blade, i cant remove it.

 

[five.five-six]

Vertemid and majano are the worst.


I had a strong case of Vertemid and the only way I cleaned them out was when my tank crashed and burned 2 years ago.

 

[Research Monkey]

I got a much more worse problem than your Aiptasia before, majano anoneme. My tank is 250G. It so hard to fix and cant star over. Last year, it was everywhere, mostly on all my rocks. 1-2 pop up randomly right now but it’s under control with Aiptasia-X.
Right now, i have problems with Vertemid snails and Asterina starfish. i’ve put some predators in the tank and hopefully it will be under control.
And a very tough and hard turf algea. Even with a sharp razor blade, i cant remove it.

Feels very defeating right? Like I've tried everything and it still doesnt work... but I can see if I had no upgrade path it would be even harder.

 

[Letsgotothezoo]

Aptasia X is useless. I have a great success with Filefish in the past, not until it decided to jump.

 

[joseserrano]

Water quality is good. Parameters are all good. I have RBTAs in there and corals were doing well. They are also living in the back of the AIO.



I've moved them over anytime it was easy to grab one. It was pretty bad. Tank was basically overrun. The only places they didnt thrive was right next to a RBTA.

if they are alive, then you must get more (the problem is larger than what you purchased can handle), or you need to be patient until they reach a large enough population to take care of the issue.

 

[Kupo]

I had a tank running for about 8 months and decided to restart after being overrun with branching/digitate hydroids. Nuked my tank with fenbendazole. Instructions online said to leave it for 30 hours, I left it in the system for 3 weeks (really wanted to get rid of hydroids). The corals, fish, and snails/hermit survived. Moved everything to a new tank after all the hydroid melted away and.....

The digitate hydroids start popping up again....

 

[NickleCheese]

Feels very defeating right? Like I've tried everything and it still doesnt work... but I can see if I had no upgrade path it would be even harder.

Its part of the game and its life. I will continue and will not give up.

I had a tank running for about 8 months and decided to restart after being overrun with branching/digitate hydroids. Nuked my tank with fenbendazole. Instructions online said to leave it for 30 hours, I left it in the system for 3 weeks (really wanted to get rid of hydroids). The corals, fish, and snails/hermit survived. Moved everything to a new tank after all the hydroid melted away and.....

The digitate hydroids start popping up again....

I got hydroids too lol

 

[Emac909]

I didn’t read all the posts. But I’ll say I put 4 berghia in my 187g and in 7 months there e was not one aiptasia left in the tank.
Little back ground of my system main tank is a 187g custom build, trigger triton44 sump, and 70g frag tank plumbed it.
My frag tank is full of aiptasia still but my main display is aiptasia free. I raise berghia so I want to keep aiptasia in my frag tank as I need a food source to supply my berghia prop tanks. In Jan I bought 11 berghia. I put 4 in my main and put the rest in a propagation tank. By July I couldn’t find one single berghia in the main tank. Yes I’m aware sense the system has aiptasia they will come back. I’m fine with that as I’m easily getting 20-50 baby berghia a month. So I’m planning to keep a healthy supply of aiptasia.

So for my main tank. It has minimal rock work, but a lot of sps corals. Fish list Clown Tang, Tomimi Tang, Blue Tang, Lavender Tang, Purple Tang, 3 leopard wrasses, cleaner wrasse, mystery wrasse (hate this fish it has eaten every shrimp I put in my tank), and spotted rabbit fish.
Even with the 5 wrasses I was still able to eliminate the aiptasia problem in my tank

I biggest problem I see with people. They thing berghia are going to whip out the aiptasia is a week or month. Nooooo, it takes time and you need to be patient.

In the 9 months I’ve been raising berghia. I’ve started to notice that berghia can sense each other and they tend to stay in little groups. Berghia are hermaphrodites, so when they meet they both impregnate each other. They tend to stay in groups so they can keep reproducing. Let’s just say you had 2 adult berghia in a tank. Yes they will reproduce and lay countless amount of egg spirals for months. But it takes around 2 months to start seeing baby berghia from when they adults have been introduced. But what I found is even in optimal conditions, meaning if the berghia are in a prop tank by them self. Nothing to eat them I can get about 15-20 babies from 4 adult berghias in 2 months time. So in you tank your going to have thing eat berghia like fish, shrimps, crabs, some larger pods types, bristle worms….. so it’s going to take time for the population of burghia to establish before to see them making a noticeable dent.

 

[Tommy Ngo]

Water quality is good. Parameters are all good. I have RBTAs in there and corals were doing well. They are also living in the back of the AIO.



I've moved them over anytime it was easy to grab one. It was pretty bad. Tank was basically overrun. The only places they didnt thrive was right next to a RBTA.

20 gallons is not that big of a tank if you’re planning to start over again. It wouldn’t be that bad just to reboot it. After you restart the system you still have to be careful on what you put in it or you’ll end up with the same problem again.

 

[Research Monkey]

20 gallons is not that big of a tank if you’re planning to start over again. It wouldn’t be that bad just to reboot it. After you restart the system you still have to be careful on what you put in it or you’ll end up with the same problem again.

I have a 10 gallon desktop tank in my office. That'll be used as a quarantine tank moving forward. The 20 is getting shut down and sold/parted out or maybe I'll use that one as a quarantine tank. I bought a Reefer 250 so I'm starting to put that together.

 

[kadyooo]

Just converted to a nudibranch tank 😆

 

[phamster]

Once you see one remove the whole rock and put it in a bucket with some peppermint shrimp. Don't feed the shrimp. Leave it in there for a couple of days.

Make sure to leave a small power head or some oxygen bubbles.

 

[Research Monkey]

Once you see one remove the whole rock and put it in a bucket with some peppermint shrimp. Don't feed the shrimp. Leave it in there for a couple of days.

Make sure to leave a small power head or some oxygen bubbles.

You know, i'll probably never do a NSA Aquascape ever again because you can't just pull rocks out since everything is basically glued together. The 250 i'm putting together i'm just going to stack rock.

 

[waterman78]

If you're at your very end of trying the peppermint shrimps, berghia nudibranchs, and chemical products.....

I would like to offer the WIRE BRUSH Technique. Wear goggles, long sleeves, and gloves.

Remove each rock, one at a time...preferably between water changes and scrub each rock removing every bit of tissue and slime.... when you're finish - grab tweezers, magnifying glass and a scalpel for a more detailed procedure.

Then re-introduce the peppermint shrimps - they'll help remove any tissue left behind.

Good luck to you. And hopefully these TWO PENNIES brings you a fortune of HAPPINESS.

- Larry

 

[Garets92553]

I didn’t read all the posts. But I’ll say I put 4 berghia in my 187g and in 7 months there e was not one aiptasia left in the tank.
Little back ground of my system main tank is a 187g custom build, trigger triton44 sump, and 70g frag tank plumbed it.
My frag tank is full of aiptasia still but my main display is aiptasia free. I raise berghia so I want to keep aiptasia in my frag tank as I need a food source to supply my berghia prop tanks. In Jan I bought 11 berghia. I put 4 in my main and put the rest in a propagation tank. By July I couldn’t find one single berghia in the main tank. Yes I’m aware sense the system has aiptasia they will come back. I’m fine with that as I’m easily getting 20-50 baby berghia a month. So I’m planning to keep a healthy supply of aiptasia.

So for my main tank. It has minimal rock work, but a lot of sps corals. Fish list Clown Tang, Tomimi Tang, Blue Tang, Lavender Tang, Purple Tang, 3 leopard wrasses, cleaner wrasse, mystery wrasse (hate this fish it has eaten every shrimp I put in my tank), and spotted rabbit fish.
Even with the 5 wrasses I was still able to eliminate the aiptasia problem in my tank

I biggest problem I see with people. They thing berghia are going to whip out the aiptasia is a week or month. Nooooo, it takes time and you need to be patient.

In the 9 months I’ve been raising berghia. I’ve started to notice that berghia can sense each other and they tend to stay in little groups. Berghia are hermaphrodites, so when they meet they both impregnate each other. They tend to stay in groups so they can keep reproducing. Let’s just say you had 2 adult berghia in a tank. Yes they will reproduce and lay countless amount of egg spirals for months. But it takes around 2 months to start seeing baby berghia from when they adults have been introduced. But what I found is even in optimal conditions, meaning if the berghia are in a prop tank by them self. Nothing to eat them I can get about 15-20 babies from 4 adult berghias in 2 months time. So in you tank your going to have thing eat berghia like fish, shrimps, crabs, some larger pods types, bristle worms….. so it’s going to take time for the population of burghia to establish before to see them making a noticeable dent.

The 10 I bought from you awhile ago. They are still doing good. I didn’t notice any change until maybe two weeks ago. Didn’t see them at all the first month even looking for them at night. Now I usually see a few every night when I look. I have a 220g display with tons of aptasia. They made a bit dent in the aptasia so far.

 

[resortez]

I would suggest a Klein butterfly but your system is too small for that type of fish, I could be wrong & the butterfly could thrive in your system. Klein tends to remain small for a longer period of time compared to other butterflies & has been reef safe in my experience, plus they’re very active & friendly. Klein butterflies in my experience have been very efficient at eradicating aiptasia. I have also had success with copperbands & saddlebacks. Hope it help