Aiptasia control

melev

melev

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[Yesterday, I received two Aiptasia eating nudibranch Berghia verrucicornis and they were tiny. Tpeck recently ordered six of these from someone on Reef Central, I believe. I bought two of them. I've got a lot of aiptasia (btw, I've always spelled it 'aptasia' but noticed in Google that the 'i' was left out.) in my reef, and I've tried a few of the typical solutions but they continue to pop up out of everything including within corals themselves.

Thus, I decided to use my Frag Tank that I made for our Next Wave conference to house these little guys, and I'll put LR and corals in there for the nudibranchs to comb over and erradicate these pests. Plus, since Nibbles won't stop chewing on my zoanthids, I figured this might be a good way to salvage those. I'm not 100% decided, but this might be a good way to propagate corals if I can set it up in a way that works well.

So first of all, here are the little guys. They are really tiny, less than 1/8" wide, and maybe 1/2" long.

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They arrived yesterday in a bag, and I got them home and in to the frag tank by 1am after being out all day. Btw, they also remind me of a nudibranch that eat zoanthids, from the images I've seen posted online.

So here's the tank set up. Dimensions are 34 x 24.5 x 8, with a 6" water depth. Lighting is a 250w 14,000K SE MH. A Mag 5 connected to a spray bar creates the current in the tank, and the corner overflow box keeps the surface clean. I had to put a couple of spare heaters in the unit as the tank temperature did drop overnight - something I didn't anticipate to be honest. I figured the Mag pump would generate enough heat but apparently not.

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[Here are a number of images of the nudibranchs on the LR.

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Note the size of the aiptasia compared to these little guys.

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When I introduced these to the tank, I turned off the pump and tried to pour them over the rock once I realized I could not pick one up out of the water. They are so light that as I tried to gently get one, it would wash through my finger tips and around my fingers, never permitting me to even touch it. So the first one landed as planned. The second one landed in an aiptasia ! The aiptasia closed up around it, and I thought: "That's just great. I wonder who'll survive this battle...." but about a minute later I saw the nudibranch was alive and released. Watching closely, it was almost like the aiptasia was frightened as the nudibranch bared its fangs (my interpretation) since the aiptasia would retract a little bit at a time.

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[In these images, you can see how small it is in relation to the hitchhiker asterina starfish.

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[Here are a few of the zoos in that tank, as well as a frag of SPS (picture above). My thinking about the separate frag tank with MH lighting is that I can move rock and coral to this tank as needed, and the coral should have plenty of light to survive its stay for a short duration.

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[Any idea of the growth rate of those cute little buggers? Do the reproduce in captivity? Are they potential enemies to an anenome that we want to keep? Man that is a tough one to say! arrrrrgh Please keep us posted on the outcome and if we need to bring all our live rock to your house so your nudi's can eat our aptasia. Ok Ok not everyone at once but one of us at a time. ME FIRST!!!!! but seriously this could be great. good luck]
 
[Yes, I read an article by Anthony Calfo a while back, and he recommended keeping them out of the main display, but any offspring would be good to introduce into the reef tank. I'll have to find the article, because the link was given to me during an IM session a few months ago.

It might even be linked in his forum on RC. I'll have to check. I need to reread it anyway, now that I have them here.]
 
[Good luck ,let us know how they work. I've always had great sucess using peppermint shrimp.
Scott]
 
[Well I haven't. I've got at least 6 in my reef, and the aptasias outgrow them easily.]
 
[that's awesome Marc! I was trying to find some when I had my bad aptaisia problem, but with little luck. Any chance we could see a macro shot of them chowing down?]
 
[If I ever see them again! I've been watching the rock looking for them several times a day, but haven't seen them at all. They are so small, but I'm hoping they are alive and doing well. Plenty of aptasia are on the rock they were released upon.]
 
[I can offer a simple, yet time consuming solution, for Aiptasia control - that requires a bit of patience.

I've had great success in the past with placing vacated snail shells over Aiptasia (as best I can, to obstruct their light source). Then check daily for the Aiptasia to move onto the shell cleanly...then just lift off the shell and throw it away.

I would think, that with a very big outbreak you could use a bunch of those little tiles I see frags sold on, cover as many as you can, wait and over time eliminate them.

I also had success in the past with a Racoon Butterfly.]
 
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